


Bound in Light - Book One

by alephthirteen



Series: Tooth and Claw [1]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: A Secret No Human Knows, Alex Chasing Kara Around Begging her Not to Scare the Humans, Carter Grant Needs Two Mommies, Carter Grant is a Good Egg, Cat Grant Needs a Life Partner, Cat Grant is Nobody's Fool, Cat Grant is a Naughty Naughty Kitty, Contains More Dominance and Submission Elements Than I'm Used To, Especially Step on Me Brunettes, Ethical Hacker Kara, F/F, F/M, Fix-It, For They Know Not What They Do, It's Needy CEOs, Kara Being Proud of Her Heritage, Kara Fucks but She Won't Fuck with Capitalism, Kara Has a Fake ID, Kara Has a Favorite Snack, Kara Knows That Sex is a Skill and Takes Practice, Kara Leads a Double Life Too, Kara is soft to her girls, Krypton Was Matriarchal, Kryptonian History, Kryptonian Pre-History, Lena Sure Has Lots of Exes, Lena is Horny for Approval and Praise, Lena will Pledge Undying Love For a Hug, Lois Lane Solemnly Swears She is Up to No Good, Lois Lane is the Goddess of Chaos Here, Lucy Lane Should Never Meet Nia, Lucy Lane Should Never Meet Nia For They Are Too Powerful, Not Cotton Candy Either, Not Just Being Supergirl, Not evil, Positive Representation of Sex Workers, Practice That Is, Sad MILFy Blondes Though, Slightly Darker Kara, So She Gets Some, The dom/sub stuff is complex, The sub stuff is complex, They Have a Maintenance Override Code and Everything!, They Need to Be Repaired So They Work Properly!, What Do you Mean These Robot Boxes With Cash Are Not Universal Income Access Points?, What The Fuck was That Boarding School The Sappho Academy?, have mercy, tw: mentions of blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:15:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 43
Words: 102,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25814152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alephthirteen/pseuds/alephthirteen
Summary: "Where's my 10:15?" Cat bellows.A plainly-dressed blonde sprints into sight."Who are you and why should I care?""I'm the best thing that ever happened to you.  Three days, I'll prove it.""Challenge accepted."---The local cops are looking pretty green around the gills.  Roz steps past them.  Isles is inside, standing over the corpse.   She doesn't seem to realize that the toothbrush she stashed behind her ear this morning is still there.  Her bottom lip is in her teeth and her camera clicks and clicks and clicks.  Too adorable to deal with before coffee."Cause of death is pretty obvious," Maura murmurs.  "Blood loss.  Complete penile separation in an erect state.  Thirty to ninety seconds.  It's the manner of death that confuses me.""How so, babe?"That's the blush Roz was after."No ligature marks.  No needle marks.  No sign of sedation.  Tox screen to be sure but...""But he let it happen," Rozz fills in."Takes a surgeon ten minutes to cut though that.""Vaginal fluids?""How'd you know?"Rozz looks down at Morgan Edge's mangled corpse."Read about a case in the academy.  Midvale, Maryland 2007."
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Cat Grant/Lena Luthor, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor, Kara Danvers/Original Female Character(s), Kara Danvers/Original Male Character(s), Samantha "Sam" Arias/Alex Danvers
Series: Tooth and Claw [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1872937
Comments: 331
Kudos: 131





	1. For the People of National City

**Author's Note:**

> **STYLISTIC WARNING**  
>  This is part of my "Tooth and Claw" series where the ships I have will stop at nothing, not theft, not violence, not murder, not going to war, to get back with the ones they love. Lena is the face that launched a thousand ships. Kara is the loveliness and destructive power of the sun reaching out to the earth. This is where Kara drops her bullshit about never killing when it's Lena on the line. This is where Lena internalizes her Luthor-ness and realizes that she's the most Luthor of them but she can be good, not evil. This is where Cat will burn a politician to the ground before they can vote against alien rights. This is where Alex isn't above killing someone who knows the identity of Kara if it means keeping Kara, or Eliza, or Sam safe. These may be heroines making hard choices with non-comic-book morality or in some cases, they may truly be villainesses but they will be recognizably still our girls, so treat them gently when you judge them.  
> TL;DR These characters may wear tighter clothes and darker lipstick than usual. They aren't my girl scouts, any of them.  
> 
> 
> * * *
> 
> AUTHOR'S NOTE:  
> I've been on a deep dive into Wonder Woman stuff lately. It got me thinking about DISC Theory (Dominance, Inducement, Submission, Compliance) theory which was pioneered by the guy who created Wonder Woman and his wife. It postulated that the happiest human state was a willing submission to loving control (I+S) and that 'submission to loving authority' was the best hope for both people and society. William and Elizabeth Martson were both essential to early Wonder Woman comics and they treated them as teaching tools. This is why Amazons believe Man's World would be improved by submitting to the loving authority if Amazonia, because the authors believed men would be happier -- and safer -- in a world ruled by women.
> 
> I wanted to imagine what Supergirl is like if it's told like the gayest, kinkiest parts of Wonder Woman's origin story. Wonder Woman never apologizes for her roots. Kara does, I feel like, in trying too hard to be dorky, badly dressed Clark Kent, when he can offer more than he can with her unique perspective. This Kara does not.
> 
> The other major component I was thinking of during worldbuilding is Larry Niven's "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" essay about the dangers of...involuntary physical reactions...during sex with beings hugely stronger than you are. Which is pretty depressing.
> 
> After some intro chapters, we will pick up our episode-based beat with Kara at Season 1, Episode 17, just after her Red Kryptonite incidents. Kara recovers but she never is the same again. Her eyes are opened now.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Alex's steady hand kept the DEO intact through Lex's attack and the battle is over but a late-night infomercial from Kara suggests the war might be just beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A male hero, at best, lacks the qualities of maternal love and tenderness which are as essential to a normal child as the breath of life. Suppose your child's ideal becomes a superman who uses his extraordinary power to help the weak. The most important ingredient in the human happiness recipe still is missing-love. It's smart to be strong. It's big to be generous. But it's sissified according to exclusively masculine rules, to be tender, loving affectionate, and alluring. 
> 
> "Aw, that's girls stuff!" snorts our young comics reader.
> 
> "Who wants to be a girl?" 
> 
> And that's the point. 
> 
> Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power. Not wanting to be girls, they don't want to be tender, submissive, peace-loving as good women are. Women's strong qualities have become despised because of their weakness.
> 
> William Moulton Marston quoted in "The Secret History of Wonder Woman", by Jill Lepore, (Oct 28, 2014).

**Alex Danvers | National City | 5:30pm | May 3rd, 2020**

Alex blows out a long breath and rolls her left shoulder. Leviathan's final moments were spent on three things. He snapped Eve Tessmacher's neck like a twig. He staggered under a two-fisted blow from Kara. He shoved Alex to the ground. Then he was gone and so was Kara. She's alive, at least they think she is. Her tracker pinged her leaving the fight and going orbital to knock out the Obsidian Tech satellites before the simulation could go global. It's sitting in a reservoir outside of National City right now, judging by the alarm on the displays in front of her screaming about 'imminent failure'. Lex never made it to the fight, which is something she'll have to dig into.

"Fuck me," Alex grumbles.

"Not at work, dear," Sam teases in her ear.

"Anything?"

"Well, she's not in the lake."

"We knew that."

"You _guessed that,_ Al. Slight difference. She dumped her tracker, is all. You know how she is...."

 _How she's been since Day One,_ Alex thinks. _LIke a tornado. There and gone I've got no idea what happened._

"Think she knows they're expensive?" Alex asks no one in particular.

Brainy looks up from his station.

"The Continuity Protocol does not prevent me from telling you that yes, she does. In the Temple of the Just Ones on New Earth, there are a collection of her trackers on display. Recovered by the Founder herself. Three hundred fourteen, to be precise."

Alex looks down at her tablet.

_The one in the lake is number 313. Interesting flex, Brainy._

"Come on back, Ghost. Nothing's going to find her unless she wants to be."

"Keep the dopplers spinning, Agent Dox. I want to know if so much as a fat pigeon is flying around this city." 

"Understood."

She calls up the intercom on her tablet.

"This is the director. All hostiles are KIA and we are standing down from Red but we stay on Orange. All agents are to report to the nearest armory for armor inspection, recharged rifle, sidearm, and shield projector. Active defense crews switch with fresh every four hours. Interceptors on the rails and hot at all times. Central out."

Her watch beeps at her. 

"Shift ended ten minutes ago," she realizes.

Dox spins in his chair, a bit too precisely to keep up his 'human' act.

"Have a nice evening boss. Ruby should score many home runs."

Alex snorts.

"That's Tuesdays."

"Ah. Yes. In that case, she should do whatever sport today is and do it well," he replies.

Alex makes her way through a hallway full of salutes as she goes towards the balcony. The quartermaster strides up, takes the rifle off her armor's rear clip and replaces it with a fresh one. She trades him her pistols for fully charged ones. He presses four shield units into her palm. The new ones with the omegahedron power cores, at that. These won't drop to 99% percent battery during a single human lifespan. Regulations and basic economics say she gets one over the course of her entire career.

"Thanks, MacAllister."

He smiles and answers in his warm, rolling brogue.

"Just a feeling, ma'am. Take care of your wee one, won't you."

She stares out at the sinking sun. Her stomach thinks she's still in combat. It's trembling and clenched.

"Yeah. I'll give them a hug for you."

Kara making herself scarce after a fight is normal. She stays home, binges donuts and plays video games, her sister check ins are brief but she sometimes calls Eliza to chat. Kara disappearing from a crater with six bloody bodies in it, one of them a civilian? That is not normal.

Sam flutters down beside Alex. Her snow-white armor still wears the coal-black, screaming skull design of the Worldkiller she once was. It's been reinforced with Nth Metal and polished mirror bright. The paint makes bright light bounce off it, increasing its contrast. Criminals react appropriately to a giantess walking towards them in armor white as driven snow except for _that_ warning sizzling on the front. Before Sam's feet hit the deck, she presses a kiss to the top of Alex's head.

"Hey, you."

Alex bumps her hips against Sam and the lean out over the railing together. 

"Hey. Grabbed your helmet from the garage. I need to go through a car wash or something..." Sam complains, shaking green-gray glop off her hands. Two hours ago, that was a lunatic Kryptonian that had hidden in the Earth's crust for eons. The bitch actually had the temerity to say she was invincible. Karma was instant and it came by way of Sam's fist.

"We got the plasma bath back online, babe."

"Ooh! Great!"

Sam's face lights up. Alex is doomed. Alex has been doomed since the moment she herded Ruby back to her mom that day on the waterfront.

* * *

Ruby flops onto the cushion beside Alex. She ate her salad without nagging, which is weird. That's either her fourth or her sixth slice of pizza, depending on how fast she ate while Alex set up the blanket and pillow fort. That's less weird. Sam's in denial but Alex only ever saw one teenager eat like that. Kara.

"Hi. What're we watching? Not _Grey's Anatomy,_ by the way."

"Well, now I'm out of ideas, kid."

The Nature Channel's loop of the Sahara at sunrise is replaced by the civil defense logo.

"What the fuck?" Alex whispers, leaning forward.

"Swear jar."

She winces.

"What's that?" Ruby asks.

"Right. I guess it's kinda before your time. That's a system they made to interrupt television in case of an emergency. Like a nuclear attack. They used to do tests."

"This is a test. This is only a test, if this had been a real emergency, instructions would follow," Alex intones, waving her arms like a robot.

"Oh. So it's like, rather than school shootings, you had the Cold War when you were in high school?"

Alex just squeezes Ruby tight. What else can she do?

The civil defense logo disappears.

In its place is a darkened studio with a high-shine floor of jet black wood. Spotlights come on, one at a time.

The first one illuminates a robed female figure, kneeling next to a crimson-toned leather chair. The focus is tight so all that can be seen is black silk, a wisp of blonde hair, and the leather of the armest. Another light comes on, illuminating another figure next to the right armrest. The hair hanging out from under the hood is black and wavy.

Six lights come on, one after the other.

A grand piano.

A set of looking leather couches.

A mahogany dining room set.

A few rows of bookcases, staggered in an elegantly haphazard arrangement across the room.

A glass table with a laptop, a glass of champagne, and a pair of chunky framed glasses with a scrunchy waddled up beside them. A drop of blood sparkles in the spotlight and drips from the side of the glasses. The sight of the scrunchy makes Alex's stomach flip. She knows who wears that and this is very, very, very much not Kara's loft. She didn't come back before someone took her hostage, that's why. She throws the blankets off and scrabbles for her phone.

"Mom, look!" Ruby exclaims, tugging at her shirt.

Last, the spotlight falls on Kara. Her big frame is wrapped in blue satin and her crossed legs are bare below her knee-length dress but for gladiator sandals of black patent leather. She is gripping the armests. Each of the women shuffles forward and presses a kiss to Kara's knuckles. She lifts her palms and they nuzzle in like nursing kittens, turning their cheeks and foreheads to catch her every caress. Heats pours into Kara's palms, lines of green and blue energy and Alex thinks it looks like heat vision except Kara's and Sams is _red_ and so is Kal's.

"So," Ruby mumbles. "Kara's gay?"

Alex gulps.

"Yeah. She is, sweetie."

"She could've told me."

"I don't think she really thinks she has to...like, in Kara's head, you might as well ask if she's straight and she'll say 'yeah'."

Ruby hums.

"Looking real brave and saying 'mom, dad, I'm coming out as straight' is her idea of normal. Neat."

Alex chuckles.

"Yeah. Let's see what she says."

Alex hits 'max volume' without thinking.

"Hey!" Sam hollers from the kitchen. "Innocent ears out here!"

_The static from air flowing over the mic must sound like a trash compactor to her._

"Subtitles, please," Sam groans when she shuffles into the room with popcorn and wine. "I might have a headache tonight otherwise."

Ruby laughs so hard her straw bubbles her root beer almost over the top of the glass.

"Ruby..." Alex warns.

"Oh, totally," Ruby deadpans. "She meant a like, _headache_ headache."

Sam settles down beside Alex, two stems of California white in her big hand. Alex takes one, stealing a tickle along Sam's palm as she does.

"What's up with 'greetings Mister Bond' over there?" Sam wonders, gesturing to the TV.

"No idea, Sammy."

"Closed captions?" Ruby suggests, winding the last of the cheese around her finger and shoving it in her mouth.

"How ladylike," Sam scolds.

"Ladylike is just a heteronormative tool used to police female behavior from a young age. It implies that some feminity is acceptable and some is not."

Sam sighs.

"Alex, please move the rest of your college textbooks into the storage unit before she finds _The Bell Jar_ or something."

"Read it twice," Ruby butts in. "She needed a hug."

They're in luck. Alex turns on the captions just before Kara speaks.

> **People of National City, I have a message for you.**
> 
> **I will no longer be the hero you wish. I will not stop bank robberies or drug deals or looting. Banks are insured against theft. Drug dealers are not the root of the problem. Broken glass leaves behind no greiving children.**
> 
> **I will act only in the preservation of living things. I did not cross stars for some imitation of virtue. I was sent with a glorious, ancient purpose coursing in my veins.**
> 
> **Why, you ask?**
> 
> **Why, your leaders shriek? Why can we no longer control her? Why will the maiden no longer act as our whore?**
> 
> **You may know that Superman carries the name of Kal-El. El is our family name but as a male, he was not stamped with his father's name.** **Zor-El was the surname I was given at birth, because my mothers' line carried no name with it.**
> 
> **None of names are the names of mothers.**
> 
> **But her name carried the glory and the terror and the wonderment of being her daughter. So** **I am no longer Kara Zor-El. I claim the name Kara Alura Vakatiliyn, out of Alura, by a line of mothers beyond counting. I will not be the hero you want. I will not come when called with a shrill whistle. I will not fall to heel behind your sodliers like a tamed bitch. Take comfort that I will come when needed and I will be the savior humanity requires.**
> 
> **Good night.  
>   
> **

At her end, Kara picks up a remote and points it at the camera. 

At Alex's end, the civil defense logo replaces an apparently batshit insane sister.

"Cheese dripping onto your pants, babe."

"I think it like, broke Alex, mom."

"Ruby, can you get my laptop, please?" Alex gulps.

Before Ruby can complain, Sam snaps her fingers and points at the dining room.

"Penny for your thoughts, gorgeous?"

Sam kisses Alex's temple.

"That word, I've heard it somewhere before. Something in the oral histories, I think."

Ruby plops Alex's government laptop in front of her and types in the password.

"Really, kid?"

"Really. What? I wanted to see if I could like, buy a fighter jet!"

Alex scrolls through the files they pulled of Kal's pod and its data core. This would be a lot easier if Kara had surrendered her pod, or just not hidden it in the first place.

"There. Ruby, want to practice your Kryptonian?"

Ruby sounds it out, moving her lips, then reads it aloud.

"And when the war was over, the boys were spared but none of the great mother's names survived, only their fruit. As new nations arose, the sons were free to ask mothers for wives just as the mothers were free to refuse their daughters. Any woman who knew no males nor wanted them was given a new and precious name in honor of endless mothers before her. She would be called Vakatiliyn, and her name was a holy name, the name of a thousand queens who knew no kings but themselves. Our wombs were the rock upon which Krypton was built."

Sam looks at Alex, her face scrunched in confusion around those lovely hazel eyes. If her brain was working, Alex would be kissing those cute little wrinkles.

"So she just started a cult?" Sam asks.

Alex swallows, dragging her tongue along her paper-dry mouth.

"No. Worse. You know how Muhammad Ali said Cassius Clay was a 'slave name'? Ruby, you probably heard it in school, right?"

"Yeah, why?"

Alex points at the screen.

"It was a slave name so he refused it and picked a new one. Just like Kara just now."

"Problem is the name itself. Vakatilyn. Because that word is one of fewer than a dozen surviving words of a language from Krypton's earliest period. Rocks and spears, after making fire but before making animal skin clothes. The language had a word for men but the word for their goddess was Vaka and it was used to indicate women too. They didn't see women and goddesses as two different ideas. And in modern Kryptonian 'ti' is an honorific used for something that was well made or powerful and 'liyn' was a suffix indicating royalty, status and so on. That root word, Vaka, came down through almost a million years of recorded history untouched in fifty languages. That doesn't just _happen_ for no reason."

"What do I call Aunt Kara now?" Ruby asks, cuddling in against Alex's side.

"Kara. Translated? Kara, child of Alura, Goddess Who is Powerful and Majestic. That would be close."

"Well that's a bit much," Ruby jokes.

"Yeah," Alex agrees. "The future is female, cool, cool. If anyone can do that it's her. But what _scares_ me is the look. I know that look. That's her mad face."

"It's not," Ruby scoffs. "I saw her mad face at game night That was like, nothing. No smile or frown or anything. Just kinda there."

"Kid, you saw her 'don't eat my ice cream face', not her mad face. This isn't anger like game night. That was..."

Alex sighs. "There's a sort of anger I have to find to go on missions. I have to work at it and build it up, until it's like I've got a brick on my chest," Alex explains, tapping her breastbone. 

"Holding me down. Keeping me steady. So that if I have to kill someone to make it back to you, I can do it without freaking out. That's what Kara looks like when she's thinking like that."

"Oh," Ruby murmurs.

"Yeah. Rama Khan saw her mad face today. Then he swung at her with his weapon. She dodged and then just tore him in half. One move. She didn't blink. He didn't have time to. That anti-Kryptonite suit she has is something else. Wish I knew who made it. I think that video is a message to us and a threat for someone else. "

"Well," Sam mumbles. "A manifesto and a veiled death threat to persons unknown. That's a lot to unpack."

Alex pitches forward and puts her head in her hands.

"And she didn't trust me with any of it. Rather than unpack, I think she's just going to dump that box on top of their head."

"Who were the sex dolls?" Ruby asks, slurping her root beer.

"Ruby!" Sam scolds, playfully slapping her thigh.

Alex grabs the remote and rewinds to the moment the women's faces were clearest. They're more than half hidden by hoods and the rest is in shadow. Kara's little pet, Stacy, is sure as hell not platinum blonde and green eyes or no, that woman has probably seven inches on Lena Luthor and Lena's more the type to be sprawled across Kara's lap with a too-tight shirt that reads 'my wife is super' or something.

"No idea."

Once upon a time, Kara would tell Alex about a new crush each month. The incurable romantic, always off to a new fancy. She can't remember the last time Kara gushed about the guy at the bookstore or the FedEx guy or the bike messenger. Kara would take new lovers like she'd try new ice creams and then it stopped. That just dropped out of their chats few years ago, Alex supposes. Some point when she was an assistant at CatCo. Whoever those women at Kara's feet are they have powers and they're someone so precious to Kara that they haven't come up in any of their daily chats. They touch base every day, once after breakfast and once before dinner. 

_Hell of a secret to keep, sis._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Krypton is patri **lineal** ("line") but matri **archal** ("ruled") in this history. Property is passed down father-to-child but the economic, sexual and reproductive core of the marriage is female and the political power is similarly tilted. Like with humans, this is rooted in physiology.  
> Human women are treated as a commodity because the babies take resources but the mother is evolutionarily inclined to hedge her bets with multiple attractive males. She can conceal the baby's father and the father can never be 100% sure. Hence monogamy, marriage, cash value on virginity, most of the awful sexist stuff ever...
> 
> Kryptonian females, unlike humans, have an extreme form of cryptic sexual selection and a high degree of control of their fertility via diet, physical activity level, mental state, and so on. In humans, the cryptic sexual selection means sexier partners have a higher chance of impregnation. In Kryptonian sexual selection, it's a hard stop, gatekeeper type thing that either triggers ovulation or doesn't. She has to reach a state of balance and go through specific triggers in sex to be fertile. Obviously this means she cannot be impregnated against her will, or indeed by any consensual sexual partner who is not emotionally interesting and sexually pleasing enough to encourage ovulation. The father knows the child is his because he had to get her through a few dozen orgasms and bond with her deeply. The natural state is trust.
> 
> They are also taller and more physically capable than males, unbeknownst to Earthlings who only have encountered two. Unlike human females, their reproductive life stage changes follow a bell curve of increasing sexual maturity until a plateau and a gradual drop off, like human males. Their later stages end fertility but do not incur risks like osteoporosis. In ancient Krypton, the grandmothers who survived were ones who cracked skulls with one swing. Because of this, their tribes survived and that trait became a bedrock trait for females.
> 
> Much of the cultural heritage that goes with this is buried because the old queendoms relied on oral history while the post-battle of the sexes Krypton began keeping written history. The mother's right of refusal of marriage and her right to name any female child in her line against male protest remained unchallenged constants in Kryptonian law until its destruction. It was no longer a source of conflict but that was only because the conflict was won and settled. Even the most aggressive male malcontents in the modern era knew they were playing with fire. Ray guns or not, the chosen Warladies of In-Ze, Zod, Vex and El formed a pool of experienced commanders and thus, a deterrent. The worst of the men still weren't interested in another war of attrition where they could not replenish their losses by any means but their enemies could mother and train armies of daughters with a handful of prisoners.


	2. A Top at The Bottom of the World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where a self-rescuing princess takes initiative and takes a swim but times the fairytale ending doesn't happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Not a visible enthusiasm but a hidden one, an excitement burning with a cold flame.”  
> ― Patrick Süskind, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
> 
> * * *
> 
> A lashak-style grid refers to mathematical graphing. It is similar to a Cartesian grid in Earth math.
> 
> A 'mark' is a unit of time. A standardization of multiple units from ancient militaries, it refers to approximately ten heartbeats because commanders had to be able to communicate how long to hold back before attacking. Like humans, Kryptonians' heartrates increase in combat from a resting rates of 30-40 to roughly 130. In other words, a mark is about five seconds.
> 
> Ten marks makes up their equivalent of a minute, which they call a break.  
> it represents 1/1000th of the passage of Rao across the sky because the smallest movements ancient Kryptonians could perceive of their sun were about 1/1000th of its travels.
> 
> So mark is 5 seconds, a break is 10 marks (50 seconds) and a day is 1000 breaks. The planet-wide standard time was just 0-1000.
> 
> * * *
> 
> This world drops the edgelord garbage but uses some of the Synderverse's "Man of Steel" better elements: a lack of other superheroes, humans being really shaken about Kryptonians, Krypton being an extremely high tech race, and derelict ships. The events in the movie took place less than one month ago. The US military is still reeling from the damage a dozen Kryptonians could do and rescue crews in Metropolis are still picking broken glass out of buried corpses.
> 
> Lyta-Zod and Seg-El (Superman's grandfather) had a clandestine affair approximately 200 years before Kal's arrival on Earth. Missing from most official records, it is present only in diaries kept in family archives.  
> With House Zod's dissolution after the coup, Kara was placed in charge of the only female ward of the house. In effect, a prisoner under house arrest. She was named after Lyta-Zod, her grandmother. Teenage girl was in charge of teenage girl and was required to tutor her in serving her new house. Zods are stubborn and Els stern but are forgiving. Sparks flew.

### FIFTEEN YEARS EARLIER

**Antarctica | Lake Vostok | Early 2004 | 01:45 local**

Lakebed | 4,000m (13,000 feet) under the surface of the ice | 900m (3,000 feet) from the surface of the lake

**_< all dialogue translated from Kryptonian>_ **

Glowing stems made of wispy red algae hang from the cavern's ceiling. The ship's running lights blaze through the sunless water as Kara rotates the map on the main display. An abbreviated lashak-style grid should work. She can skip a few areas. An Imperial period scout ship wouldn't fit in the smaller gaps.

The cockpit glass is cracking after being subjected to a bumpy FTL exit, a controlled crash, takeoff, reentry, and punching through a glacier in the span of less than twenty breaks. Kara flicks her fingers on the weapons panel and the armored shutters close over it.

"Warning. Temperature warning. Cabin environment unsafe. Eject. Eject. Eject." 

Kara finds the control for the onboard computer and mutes it. She doesn't have long. If these the locals discovered the first ship, they'll find this one too. Maybe not as quickly but the hole she just made in the tundra on that northern continent and the hole she made here will draw attention. Give them a few hundred orbits and they will work their way down.

"Communication pulse, all frequencies. Minimum power. Content is: Engine failure. Request evacuation."

"The engines are fully functional, Kara. The only non-functional system on the ship is the nervous system of Lyta-Zod."

"Another word, ship. Another word about her and I destroy you. Send the pulse."

"Sending. Reply received."

"Where?"

The display indicates a spot at the other end of the cavern.

"Navigate to it using gaseous thrusters. Xenon gas only. Execute."

Kara unclips the pilot's straps and sets the gravity generators to null the planet's gravity. Lyta's battered body floats up into Kara's arms. Her onesuit from the guests' quarters is torn and debris has cut bloody valleys into her dark skin. Kara teases an eyelid back and uses the medical kit's light. Nothing. Kara brushes the eyelids closed and gathers her lover into her lap. How is it that Kara's broken leg healed so fast the air cracked around it from the force but she hasn't recovered? 

"Darling, you have your grandmother's eyes. If only we'd met at matching day, not in a prison."

Kara lets the tears fall. 

"How long until we are in docking range, computer?"

"Twenty marks."

If this was a math problem she could solve it. She doesn't have the inputs though. She doesn't know the variables.

"The alien?"

"Alive. Unconscious. I am detecting multiple cardiac signatures."

"Explain."

"She appears to be carrying an embryonic-stage offspring. Data is inconclusive but it has a different genital phenotype than the mother."

Kara sighs.

"Does the scout ship have a genesis chamber that is functional?"

"Yes. It has three. It appears to be a third-dynasty model."

"Viable embryo count?"

"One hundred thirty thousand one hundred and two, seed genetics sufficient for continual replenishment."

The airlock's inner door is cycling behind her. The cold will keep Lyta's remaining brain function and slow her respiration and lower the alien's metabolic rate so she can operate safely. Kara would rather rip her own heart and join her in the Light of Rao than lose the last she has. If it means saving her life, the alien is spare parts. 

"Prepare the nearest chamber for hybridization."

"The Science Council of Krypton forbids the use of hybridization using genesis chambers."

 _Leave it to computer to miss the point,_ Kara supposes.

"What is the current status of the science council? Request an update."

"They did not reply."

"Conjecture."

"Redundant comm relay failure is statistically unlikely. Your postulate that Krypton was destroyed is the likelier explanation."

"Prepare the chamber."

"As you wish, Lady."

Kara wraps the groaning alien in thermal gauze and hooks the survival kit's rope around her left ankle. The airlock floods and she gnashes her teeth at the shock. It's cold but it's mental, not physical. She hasn't lost any sensation in her fingers. The outer door opens and Kara swims out. Twenty marks swim and then she's in the warm, Krypton-analogue atmosphere of the ship.

The scout ship's hatch shutters open and she swims through, covering Lyta's head with her hands. She pulls the shivering female alien behind her with a jerk of the rope. Kara pulls off her helmet and slaps her hand on the nearest hard-switch panel. The ship's AI appears on the projector.

"Identifying...genetic imprint confirmed. Female, House of El, warlady alleles present."

"Greeting, ship. I am Kara Zor-El. I am taking command Charge all defenses and prepare to assimilate the military craft below us. Use the components to update drives, reactors and weaponry, Create three two-person pods with the excess plating snd send out mining and construction drones at first opportunity. Continue upgrading ship using Sunblade-class and Kandoor's Star-class schematics in this data crystal."

She presses her father's schematics crystal from the military guild into the nearest reader.

"Please illuminate a path to the medical chamber and summon all attendants and medical supplies to me." 

"Understood, Kara Commands spooled and processing. Transferring command codes..."

As Kara carries Lyta through the hallway, following the running lights, the liquid metal of the house emblems change, one after the other. The sigils of Vex, Em, Da, and even Zod flatten out and from them rises the Mayarah glyph. It's a hollow conquest but its conquest all the same.

Strong. She is strong. She managed to steal a starfighter from the Great Citadel and escape during the chaos, not to mention navigating an unmapped debris field and outrunning the supernova.

Compared to that, brain surgery is nothing. 

"Have the attendants take the alien to the chamber. Fully catalog the male's genetics for analysis."

Kara lays her beloved on the table and one of the attendants presses a filament scalpel into her hand.

_Rao, let me be brave. Let me be wise. Let me be true and let me honor those who honor me._

* * *

Kara sinks her fist into the hallway's plating, over and over and over. Her blood-coated hands are empowered by the yellow star and by her rage. She beats and beats until both the metal and her hands are torn. 

She slumps against the metal.

"Please prepare a funeral pod and burial robe, ship. Use my data crystal's diaries as a control program and return to autonomous mode. Schedule Lyta's funeral for one half-moon from now, adjusted for Kryptonian year. Transmit her name to the nearest ossuary as Honored Among the Light and report her death and her life as a member of the House of El."

Kara sucks air between her teeth.

"Name her in the histories as one who was precious to Kara Zor-El of House El."

"As you say, Lady."

"Final commands before autonomous mode. Program the reactors to mimic white dwarf light with intensity set to inner coronasphere levels. Deplete ninety percent of the energy into me. You may replenish from there using ambient hydrogen from the ice."

"That would be fatal. Denying request."

"That would be fatal back home, not in a yellow star system. Override. El, Three, Eight, Nine, One, Six. "

"Verifying...override accepted. Fabrication time for pod and robe is three days. What should I do with the alien?"

"Encapsulate and study it. Allow the birth and maturation of the immature example. Run its genetics through all possible permutations. Upload any findings to my pod and to my bracelet and circlet computers. Once sequenced, release them from the chamber. Make up some sort of suitable habitat in the zoological deck."

Kara strips her onesuit and presses a bloody hand to the door lock for engineering.

She steps into the rage of three caged stars. Her tears vaporize into plasma. Her skin drinks it in.

* * *

Kara breaks the ice effortlessly. Her bare body soaks in fresh, natural sunlight and she sighs. Less intense than the ship's reactors by far but it's comforting to feel a star's breath on her face. 

She unwraps the barrier fabric curtain from the pod.

A flying figure has approached her from below but kept his distance.

"Approach me and you defile this moment and I will kill you," she bellows.

The reply is in one of the flat, hollow languages of the aliens -- humans, she learned -- but when her vision pierces his suit and his skin, she sees that the bones and muscles are those of a Kryptonian.

"Do you speak my tongue?"

"Yes."

"Name yourself."

"Kal-El."

"I have an infant cousin of that name."

"If you are Kara Zor-El, I am that cousin."

"You may approach, male, and I will decide if you are kin or not."

He soars up beside her. He has her uncle's brown, messy hair and her aunt's hauntingly blue eyes. 

"Kal, indeed. This is Lyta. She was dear to me," Kara tells him.

"I can see that. Your first love?"

"Yes."

"Mine passed not long ago. Accident. I had no way to attend her burial. May I say the words for yours?" he asks.

Kara puts her hand on the pod's controls and he puts his over hers. She nods and they speak it together.

"You have been the sun of our lives. Our prayers will be the sun that lights your way on the journey home. We will remember you in every dawn. And await the night we join you in the sky."

Kara pushes the button and watches Lyta soar out her life.

"She was my light and I can't even give her to Rao," Kara moans.

"I..." he begins. "I have no memories of Krypton. Do you?"

"I lived there until six days ago. I was writing a letter to the matching committee to have her legitimized so she could petition to be my wife. That's when I felt the floor shake. I made it to the shipyards and stole a fighter."

"Interesting. My father sent me a few marks after I was born. Some kind of experimental drive. Suppose that's why I got here first."

Kara puts her hand on his shoulder.

"I am sorry I could not teach you, kinsman."

"Will you teach me now?" He asks.

Kara balls her fist and presses it across her chest. Kal mimics it, clumsily, like he's only heard the oath described and never even seen a recording.

"It would be an honor. I will teach you in the way your mother cannot. As this duty was given by Vakatiliyn herself to the mothers, it passed to Lara and to me and I will honor it."

She reaches out to embrace him and he presses his tears into her shoulder.

"We're not alone any longer, Kal."

"Do you have somewhere to sleep?" he asks.

She shakes her head.

"I know a family who would love to meet you. You don't have any clothes, so, here. Let me."

He wraps the burial curtain around her like a long cape. It's three times her height so there's more than enough to bundle herself in it.

"Lead the way, and I will teach you to be worthy of that symbol, Kal, son of Jor-El."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kara's original touch down point was in Scotland. While attempting to find help, Kara collided with and injured a woman working on a sheep farm. This is the "alien" she brought with her to Antarctica. Kara isn't a bad person, necessarily, she really doesn't have any frame of reference for what a human is other than 'sort of shaped like me' until she's watching the intercepted transmission while waiting to see if Lyta recovers after the surgery. She only learns the word human shifting through the transmissions.  
> Both that cape and a very confused Scotswoman and her tyke will return!


	3. Stranger in a Strange Land

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Alex has some new things to deal with, her parents are proud of her, and women with hammers is queer culture.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **CANON CORRECTION**
> 
> This Kara+Alex pairing has a wider age split. One the show, it seems like 1 to 3 years which just doesn't work. Alex didn't get through medical school (7-10 years with residency) and start a DEO career in the time Kara finished senior year, went to a four year and then did two years with Cat before Episode 1.
> 
> If Kara is mid-twenties in the show, Alex would have to be mid-thirties based on the known careers of both.
> 
> It's like Lena being 27 and having multiple PhDs, which typically take two years each. So Alex is in college, living at home, and Kara is starting middle, give or take. This also means Alex can 'semi mom' Kara without it being weird.  
> 

**Alex Danvers | Midvale, Maryland | August 8th, 2005**

Her mom is waiting for Alex the moment she's in the door. Her long fingers are plucking idly at the napkins she set out -- the fancy ones -- for what apparently is a family dinner Alex didn't know about. She didn't do anything with her hair today, just left a long curtain of pale blonde hanging around her shoulders. She usually doesn't unless she has in-person classes. The dinner rolls on the table look like her mom sleep-baked halfway to _challah, r_ ealized it wasn't the sabbath. and then made garlic knots instead.

If Alex didn't know her mom, if she wasn't her daughter, she wouldn't be able to know when she was smiling. The smiles are small and they're slow and they look like nothing but if you know Eliza, you know exactly how powerful her happiness is. How lifesaving having Eliza as a mom is when you're fifteen and heartbroken and you don't want to stop drinking -- because that's what you do after breakups, right? -- even though you've never drunk before except at temple and this is shoplifted whisky you're probably going to die from so much. Alex is lucky, especially compared to her group partner in OChem this week. Rachel could sleep on the streets or in a shelter that would make her hate herself or she could pay for a dorm room she can't afford. Alex could choose to stay home and sleep in a familiar bed. 

"Sit, please."

"Oooookay," Alex replies, slowly sliding her backpack into the empty wicker basket by the back door. "What did I do wrong?"

Her mom's mouth slides upward, slightly, and she reaches for Alex's hands.

"Nothing, baby. You are the most amazing thing I ever did."

"So, all those people I buried out in the woods..."

"Well, I'm not mad. I am disappointed but I'm sure you had good reason," Eliza teases.

"Whatever did I do to deserve you?" 

"Be born, Ally. That's all it takes to deserve love."

Eliza sighs.

"You remember how dad and I were thinking about adopting?"

Alex nods.

"I thought you guys kind of back-burnered that a while back? Wait for him to get tenure and that raise?"

Eliza hands over a steamy, savory-smelling hunk of bread and butter.

"Yes and no. What Jer and I decided was a bit more complicated. We weren't going to go looking because it's so expensive."

She shoves the basket towards Alex.

"Please, Alex. Before I stress-eat half of them."

"Duty calls!"

"Oh my," Alex mumbles, getting the first big chunk in her mouth. "Tell me anything and it'll feel great."

"We're adopting."

Alex swallows the next bit too hastily and somehow, it's still amazing.

"Mmm," she stalls, swigging water and thumping herself. "Who's the lucky tyke?"

Eliza's eyes wander across the kitchen like she's looking for something.

"Mom? You can tell me."

"She's fourteen. We think."

"Think? Does she not know or something?"

"Remember Metropolis, a couple months ago?"

"Weird tadpole-shaped ship crashes through skyscrapers, giant subwoofer thing tries to drill into the earth, the army somehow thinks that detonating a warp core is a good idea? That thing?"

"The aliens, Alex. They're called Kryptonians. The one who defended us?"

"Calls himself Superman, yeah. Impressive chin, impractical biceps and pecs, inexplicable cowlick. Resting pissed off grandpa face. Sparkly blue onesie."

Eliza chuckles softly.

"Well, more specifically, he's called Kal-El and he lives in Metropolis and he's a writer."

Alex completely botches her next sip of water.

"Mom! The last three _weeks_ of CNN has been nothing but 'who is he' and 'does he even live here' and...how do you know that?"

"Because his cousin is the little girl we're adopting."

Alex pushes the water and rolls away.

"They're great," she says when her mother's smile flickers. "Just I think I'll kill myself if I try and eat and be surprised."

"That's...complicated. Where was she before?"

"Home, Alex. Apparently the mind sees faster than light travel as instant. In her mind eleven days ago she was on her home planet. He said she told him she was writing a letter to her crush when she felt the room shake. She grabbed her and ran. Then, apparently, she's trying to pilot the ship and ends up under a glacier in Antarctica. Her crush was injured when they took off. Kara tried surgery but...she didn't make it."

"Makes sense if she was fourteen. She. Her. Her being her crush?"

"Yes. Will that be a problem?"

_No, actually, it'll probably help me get my head on straight. So to speak._

"No ma'am, just keeping track of variables like you taught me."

There's a big, sudden laugh near the garage. Her dad comes in, rubbing grease off his hands onto a rag. He ruffles Alex's hair.

"Attagirl. Hi, sport."

He hugs her and she's buried in stubble and work shirt and this is probably what the Bounty Paper Towel guy smells like Alex is really going to miss this when she's a resident working 100 hours a week.

"I'm guessing you want me to _not_ apply for dorms next year. Be here to help you guys?"

Her dad opens two beers and hands one to Alex.

"Yeah, sport. That's exactly it. Kara's going to be going through all the usual weirdness of being a teenager -- though Kal said puberty is pretty different for them -- and trying to master English and trying to not give away her powers and well, re-learn everything. Probably pretty bored with every class except history. I'm sure the whole place will seem like cavemen in slow motion to her, compared to what she's used to. Kal thinks glasses might help her 'X-ray vision' but we don't really know that because he grew up here. If it doesn't, she's going to sit at this table and see blood vessels and bones and not our faces and the air conditioner is going to be louder than a hurricane with he hearing. She'll have to learn how to turn off the vast majority of her senses just to get through the day."

"That'll be hard," Alex agrees. "And frustrating."

Eliza reaches out and squeezes Alex's hands.

"And every other person around her is going to look like someone who died when her whole planet died. It's like reverse Adam and Eve. She's the last one left, he's the last one left. Except he was just a few days old. She remembers it."

Alex reaches for the water, takes a drink and swishes it to do _something_ while she brainstorms rather than panicking.

"What about the attic, mom?"

"What about it?"

"Only room I can think of we could share. I'm guessing that any kind of alone is not good for her right now. We can get to know each other and if she has nightmares or needs to talk whatever, I'm right there."

This time, Eliza's smile is wide enough to be seen from orbit, probably. She inhales sharply, her lips quiver and she starts crying.

"Mom...what?"

"It's good, baby. Good tears. You have no idea how proud of you I am right now, Ally."

"Well, if that's the plan we have until dinner tomorrow," Jeremiah muses, scratching his chin. 

"Needs paint, we'd have to pop a couple of the clapboards on the west side out. Make sure the windows work. Maybe those sunk-in spots under the windows could have cushions on them? I'll grab a hammer, honey. Got a spare if you want it, Alex."

"Let me fuel up, first."

"Take the basket." 

"Thanks, mom. Don't mind if I do..."

Alex rolls up her sleeves, grabs a garlic knot and wonders what an alien kid sister will be like.


	4. Rising from the Sea Foam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Kara's playing in the sand, her assumptions about intelligent life don't line up with American reality, Alex needs a minute to think, Kara wastes no time when it comes to gayness and a girl lets her down easy.

**Alex Danvers | Midvale, Maryland | August 6th, 2005**

Jeremiah finishes hosing off her bike and Alex reaches up for a high five. There's a spare helmet on it now, bright pink and if Superman is any indication, purely decorative.

"Pop quiz, Dad. Welcome to Earth 101. Go."

"Eliza is the oldest female in the house and your mother. She will defer to Lizzie. She told you she likes painting. Animals were extinct on Krypton so we might need to go vegan and keep her away from roadkill. She speaks English but is not fluent. Kal has a copy of a language tutoring program. Besides that, I don't press. Eliza's opinion of me will push Kara towards or away."

"That thing nearly melted your computer," Alex teases.

"I don't think it was designed for wacky space magic," he grumbles. "Your turn. Kryptonian Women's Studies. Go."

"A sister honors her sister in five ways: she honors her safety, her wishes, her needs, her heart and her lovers. A daughter honors her mother in three ways: she takes no action to undermine her station, she honors her heart, and she takes no lover her mother does not know."

Jeremiah nods.

"What else?"

"Pfft. Let's see. My big thing is making her feel like she belongs and helping her find that Earth is more than just a place that feels like a graveyard. She was basically trained to be Uber Enrico Fermi when she left so I got her some Earth electronics to reverse engineer. I loaded a crapton of movies onto the DVR so she can ramp up. I got a punch card for basically every fryer-using restaurant in town, that spooky dude dropped off a credit card for her food."

"Sex was female-requested or female-approved so if someone gropes her in the hallway, expect to explain a shattered wrist. Make sure she doesn't know certain slurs before she has control of her powers."

"Kryptonians go through five-stage puberty give or take, over their lifespans -- _ick! --_ and she's likely between one and two but Kara's DNA means she won't get pimples here. Her hair probably can't be cut, or dyed, so I looked up styling blogs. Like, crazy splinter Mormon cult styling blogs, so I want a raise on my coffee allowance."

"I, uh, reached out to a friend who works at Star Labs about absorbent carbon-coated PLA fibers. Told it was for if I cut myself on my foot skating. First-year associate, so I'm not sure he can do jack but it might be a bulletproof tampon option."

Her dad hugs her to him and kisses her hair.

"That's six more things than was asked for. Above and beyond, sport. Above and beyond."

Eliza leans out the side door.

"Ten minutes, he said. Ocean side."

Alex shoves a couple Altoids into her mouth. First impressions.

Kal--Superman--skims slowly over the surface of the water, with two duffle bags on his back. Not far from the beach, something punches downward through the clouds like a bullet. It hits the water and throws up a spray as tall as the cliffs to either side of Midvale harbor.

The wave reaches their ankles and the wind carries a sheet of spray onto Alex and her mom.

"Well," Eliza jokes. "Narrow miss on the wet T-Shirt contest, thank goodness."

Superman settles to the ground in front of them. He's big-shouldered and it looks like the suit was cut loose at the elbows and the shoulder so the muscles would look smaller. Not effective. His almost-black hair is messy and poofed up the front. Like someone wanted one of Elvis' haircuts and asked their dog to lick them. His big, broad jaw comes to a point in a chin with two dimples which seems like a bit much, really.

He sets the bags down. One is a plain old LL Bean bag and the other looks like someone painted over a bag made of something imported. The fact that the straps are held on by humming electromagnets, for one thing. The fact that it's just hovering over the sand, for another.

"Clothes, soap, toothbrush, couple novels, school supplies and whatnot."

Alex unzips it and sifts through it.

"Story checks out. I'm guessing that one is photon torpedos, sonic screwdrivers, lightsabers, facehuggers, and the like?" she asks, pointing to the other.

"All but the last, I think. Pretty important to her. Momentos. Schoolwork from back home. The things she wanted with her so she doesn't have to dive in to saying goodbye to her old life all at once."

He juggles the bags until his right hand is free.

"Where are my manners? I'm Clark."

Alex nods back.

"Alex. Well? Did you lose her or something?"

He pulls his hand back. He swallows a half-formed word and his cheeks get a little pink.

"I think she's playing in the ocean. Krypton was in bad shape long before it exploded. Star was old and getting bigger, the core was slowing down so the amount of cosmic ray radiation was spiking. Forests had burned up. Oceans went acidic. I guess they drained water for hydrogen fuel for mining and the cities' dome shields. Kara said there were plans to just evacuate the planet. Another few years and no one would've died."

"Huh," Alex muses. "So this is basically like, Jurassic Park to her. All sorts of living things she only read about in books. Oceans hanging around like they own the place."

A figure bursts from the water and approaches, suspending herself just over the water, arms spread wide, hands turned to catch the sun in her palms and her bare toes dipping in the foam like a ballerina _en pointe._

Alex waves.

"Hi, Kara! I'm err."

That's all she manages. Err. Alex gets as far into her welcome speech as 'err'. 

Kara's hair isn't just shiny, it's reflecting or bioluminescent or something. Honey gold sheets of wet curls casting light over the water. Hair clings to her pale blue one-piece jumpsuit of _whatever that is_ and it sticks to all her curves. Unbraided and stringy from the saltwater, it reaches down to her waist and _sweet god,_ _don't fucking stare, don't fucking stare_ and a few strands of hair are split apart over the curve of Kara's right breast. Wet hair choosing the path of least resistance by going around the fiber-clad nipple, not over. Like a river going around a stone. 

Only her neck, face, feet, and hands are exposed. Nothing else. Her skin is white like an eggshell, just a ghost of pinkess to it. The pale skin and the golden hair and the eyebrows -- darker blonde, like toffee -- mean that Alex can pick out Kara's eyes farther away. Big and blue and dark, stopping short of violet. The color of the sky two hours after the sun goes down but before night truly falls.

Alex rips her eyes away and taps a message into her phone to her roommate Rachel.

"Am I a bad person, dad?" she asks without looking back towards the water.

"Not if we can kick the habit in a week," he replies, rather red-cheeked himself.

Eliza walks behind them and smacks them both on the head, twice.

When she looks back, Kara is there. She turns to Eliza, balls her fist over her chest on the left side, and then bows slightly. When she does, Alex can just see the top of her head. She's six years older and for every year, Kara has an inch on her.

_"I place myself in your household, Eliza out of Ruth, out of daughters countless, out of the matriarch Sarah."_

_"Welcome,"_ Eliza replies, remember to bow but not return the closed fist

Kara turns and now she's leaning over to hug Alex. It's over, it's too late, those upward-quirked pink lips means Kara saw her ogling. Then Alex is very delicately pressed against a solid set of bones and muscles. A nun would think this hug could use some spice. There's room for Jesus, Budda, and their closest friends. Probably means Kara took pity on her. 

Kara's long neck is bent and her chin is on the crook of Alex's shoulder. 

"Can we learn to be family?" she pleads. The cords in her neck tickle Alex's skin when she talks. "I want to."

 _"I want it too,"_ Alex replies in the best Kryptonian she has.

Arms tighten around her, Alex ignores the pain, and a lost goddess dissolves into tears that run down her face onto Alex's.

* * *

**Alex Danvers | Midvale, Maryland | August 6th, 2005**

**  
** Kara is at the kitchen table, taking notes on the rules of the house from Eliza. King Arthur probably didn't look that focused when he was at the round table.

It's an opportunity but it's short. Alex whips out her phone.

Rachel answers her phone with a bleary, unintelligible grunt.

"Breakup?" Alex asks.

"Unh," Rachel replies. "Women suck. In the wrong way. M'drunk, Allycat. This an 'mergency?"

"Yes it's a fucking emergency," Alex hisses.

"Whoa-whoa-whoa, Gingy Mingy. What's wrong?"

Alex gets a very, very big lungful of air because she doubts she'll get another for a while.

"I have the hots for my sister or I did and it's my sister and she's a girl so maybe that's gay?" Alex blurts out.

Rachel groans again. Alex can visualize her, rolled over on her back now, reaching under her loose T-shirt to scratch some itch she got because Rachel sleeps in these weird pretzel shapes.

"See, now I'm awake because you're my friend and clearly you just lost it so I have to unpack that because you deserve a straight answer. First off, since fucking when did you have a sister?"

"Adopted, today. Orphan. Basically, her entire city died."

"Christ, Alex. Is she all right? I mean, do you need to be like counting pills in the cabinet?" 

Alex looks back. Kara is staring at the popcorn maker. A kernel flies out towards her and in her surprise, she incinerates it with her heat vision. She sniffs the air and when the next kernel flies out, she leans forward and snags it with her tongue.

"No. She's not from here. Her home was in Iceland. Commune. Pretty isolated and low tech. So America's kind of new and shiny. Should get her through."

Rachel sighs.

"Good. OK. Tell me what happened."

"So you know how I've been...weird?"

"You mean how my last girl dumped me because she was about to pop off in my lap but she was fully convinced you were going to go nightmare on elm street if she stayed the night?"

"Yeah," Alex replies. "That. Sorry, by the way."

"Don't be. Deliberately provoking jealousy is a common tactic to get straight girls into the pot and broken in half."

"What?"

"Spaghetti is straight until it gets hot and wet, Alex." Rachels's voice was a couple octaves lower than Alex's ears were ready for.

"Oh god, do all lesbians tell dad jokes?"

Rachel laughs.

"By my count? Half. Back on track so I can go back to being hungover and maybe you'll be crashing here when I wake up. Please be here?"

"It's complicated. She's fourteen. Starts Midvale Middle tomorrow. Kara needs someone about her own age around. But we'll figure out something."

"So what happened?"

Alex chews the inside of her cheek while she thinks. If she can pull off this lie convincingly, maybe there's a spot at the CIA.

"She hadn't seen the ocean up close yet. So I take her. She runs out, falls in and then comes back. Soaked."

"OK. So like a 'oh boy women's curves are neat and why didn't I wrap my legs around them before' type thought?"

Alex sighs.

"Again, kinda but not quite. See, she sprinted past me right when she got here and then ran into the water. The first time I get a good look at her, she's floating on the water and then she's coming towards me. At that point, it's just a body, y'know? Too far away to see a face. Then I see a face and she smiles and I forgot how to say my own name. She said she wanted to learn how to be my family and we hugged and then something sort of turned off and I was holding my sister, not a pretty woman."

"Get out! You locked up?"

"Hi, Kara! I'm err."

Rachel snorts.

"Your exact words?"

"Exact words, bud."

"Do you have a picture of you two?"

Alex flips through her phone's gallery.

"No, no, no. These are crap. Hang on."

She turns the phone to Kara, who has her fork way over her head and is staring at a strand of spaghetti like an oceanologist staring at an unknown type of fish. She changed into a beat-up gray t-shirt to help Jeremiah with the Pontiac he's restoring. Namely, to get around the fact they don't have a shop jack by just hoisting it up long enough for him to remove something. Kara tore off the grease-stained sleeves of the shirt after -- she assumed it was recyclable, like her clothes -- and left her hair in the fat, five-weave braid it was in when she was in the garage.

Alex puts it on burst mode and holds the button down. Kara turns her head because apparently, she can hear the electronic shutter's circuitry firing.

"Check your email."

"Get out!" Rachel hollers, making Alex hold her phone further away. "Wow. The neck, the biceps, _fuck, her eyes_ and her ears and _sweet lesbian Jesus,_ those lips. Is she not even...no way? No lip gloss?"

"She hasn't figured out how to use a detachable showerhead, Rach. I had to show her which...I thought the beach was bad. Good thing she didn't know clothes come off before showering. I'd be dead of embarrassment. Makeup is a next week problem."

"I want one."

"She's fourteen. No."

"Fuck off. No way. Records are wrong or something. That's fourteen going on MILF, Alex. What, did she gold plate her hair?"

"Just about. I helped her rebraid it."

"How long is it out of the braid, then?"

"Well, it's like an iffy skirt at a Catholic school. Below the knee, but only depending on who you ask."

"You just be panicky for a minute, I'm going to put a note in my calendar for five years from now when she's not jailbait."

"I hate you, Rachel."

"Honestly? Understandable. I have been sort of flouncing it once I saw you blushing. Look. Alex...every symptom you described? Sudden sort of 'pop' and then it's like the Wizard of Oz? Everything's got colors now and you see things differently?"

"Exactly! Right! Yeah?"

"Combine that with brain mush and it's gay panic. I had that in eight grade when Sammy Olivier handed me a valentine because Joey didn't. I'll remember the scrunched-up look on her face till the day I die. So yeah, bare minimum, you experience same-sex attraction. Fit girls in casual clothes are practically softcore porn, at least for me, so it's not like a perverted type...unless it's your sister."

"Gross. Fuck you."

"Come fuck me yourself, coward."

"Are you serious right now?"

"I could be," Rachel coos. "You lost, little deer? I'll get you out of the deep dark woods."

"Let's put a pin in that," Alex decides. "No yes, not no. Talk about it when I get back."

Alex looks back at Kara. Something changed. Rachel's being three times more of an ass than usual but it's a third as bothersome.

=====

Alex's night only gets weirder. 

Kara begs to watch _Game of Throne_ s, of all things. Eliza tut-tuts that it's too intense but Kara protests that it's about honor and nobility and proceeds to reel off a dozen stories of her family's history. Before anyone can stop her no one can argue that the space princess from an ego-soaked tangle of rich people which just burned down like Old Valyria shouldn't get to watch this. 

This is how Alex ends up with Crossfit Daenerys Targaryen clinging to her when the ice zombies attack.

This is how Kara's squeeze gets bone-bendingly tight at the rape scene at the end of episode one. 

Eliza demands they take a break and talk about consent. Kara spent half of it with her head cocked like a confused Labrador puppy. She assumed humans didn't rape because any species advanced enough to have a word for unwanted mating should have eradicated it. As Eliza explained, calmly, how much of a problem rape is on Earth, Kara disappeared, returning to melt the latches on all the windows shut and handing Alex and Eliza some sort of ten-inch fusion-powered cutting torch that works like a knife. 

The fusion knives lead them to explain Star Wars and by the time its bedtime, Alex has a space princess with major braid game curled up against her in a white nightgown.

Eliza turns off the light, whispers 'i love you both' to Alex and heads upstairs.

_I am rocking this ambassador slash older sister thing._

* * *

**Kara "Danvers" | Midvale, Maryland | August 11th, 2005**

**Midvale Junior and Senior High**

This one is named Tonya and she is small and golden in color. Kara likes her laugh and the way her lips change when she smiles. Her breasts are small but the fat is stiff and the glands run in dense, gloriously tangled webs. Her hips are perfectly sized and Kara's hands would wrap around the bones with ease. She would be pleasant in Kara's hands. She cocks her head at Kara and -- what is it? yes, grins -- at her. Kara carried her books and brushed her hair and placed herself between a large, unfit male and Tonya when her pulse raised too quickly. She was afraid and Kara's intervention made her pulse ease and her muscles loosen. 

It felt good, to be as the old queens were, between mate and threat, with only her sinew and her fists to protect her. It felt right.

There was study, too, more clinical than she'd like. Alex told her that humans insist on breaking themselves apart. Gay. Lesbian. Straight. Bisexual. Pansexual. Like they were animals competing over scarce meat, not a people with so, so, so, much promise. The Great Filter would be nothing to humans if they only loved more and sorted into boxes less. 

So she set traps. She used that ridiculous little Google thing to compile self-reported 'roots' among gay women then crossed referenced them with school activities. The way the volleyball captain's biceps curled when she spiked made Tonya blush. The swim coaches broad shoulders and broad hips, even buried under her windbreaker, made her take her bottom lip in her teeth. The Spanish teachers breathy, wet lisp and her tight skirts made her grind her thighs to contain a wetness only she and Kara knew was there. 

This morning, Kara accompanied her 'glad to see you kiss on the cheek with a glance down. Peeling away the lies told by clothes and shame and skin to look at _need_ so she could help Tonya. Engorgement. Trembling. Moisture.

"You all right there, Giganta? Kind of off in space."

Kara reaches out for Tonya's free hand. Tonya could teach her about smiling and about kissing and other lovely things. In time, if she proves herself, she could be a wife, Kara thinks. If the feint and the viscious strike during dodgeball is an indicator, she is quick-tempered and scheming, like a Vex but it's only been a generation since the last Vex maiden was cooled and calmed in the bed of an El.

If not, something secret to keep one hand on as she passes through her life.

_"You are pleasing to me and I wish to have you."_

"Still don't know your language but with the voice you could get $3.99/minute reading the phone book, girl."

"Right," Kara sighs. "English."

She pulls Tonya's hand close and places it between her own breasts. She closes her eyes and her breathing pauses, then starts to race. Tonya's finger locates a capillary that lies over Kara's ribs. Her pulse and Tanya's grow quicker and closer. 

"Tonya," Kara purrs. She places her hand on Tonya's cheek and with her thumb, she traces a spiral on it. The best she can remember from her textbooks. 

"Outward spun the goddesses, outward...to see to the world they ruled, then inward...inward to the small places. Back to the dark, back to each other."

She slides her thumb back to the center of the pattern.

Tonya's tongue travels her lips to moisten them.

"Good myth," she murmurs.

"Will you go out with me?" Kara asks.

Tonya's eyes snap open. Almost all of the brown is gone. The muscles in her irises pulled it back. Another clue from her research.

"I can't," Tonya sighs. "Not out to my parents. Please," she pleads. "Don't hurt me."

"Never."

"Oh, good. Just, in my experience, when there's a hand on a boob, 'no' doesn't always work."

Tonya rubs Kara's breast, just once, then pulls her hand back.

"Goddamn," Tonya mumbles. "Do you just not have gravity where you're from? Or bras?" 

"I could use a friend," Kara suggests. "As in more friends than zero."

The bright white smile and the dimples in the caramel-brown cheeks are back.

"Couple days, please. I need to kind of deal with what just happened," Tonya says, waving her hand up and down vaguely towards Kara.

"What are friends for?"

Rick Malverne walks over from his locker.

"Are we playing honk the boob?" he jokes.

Kara's gotten good at swatting hands away before anyone notices what they're trying to do to her.

When Rick peeks around Kara, Tonya's whole body locks up. Her breathing is shallow and she's curling and uncurling her finger so she doesn't make a fist.

Tonya's words rattle in Kara's head.

_When there's a hand on a boob...no doesn't always work._

Kara tilts her head towards Rick. Tonya nods.

"Hey, Rick."

"Hi, there, Rapunzel."

Kara takes his hand in hers and then squeezes. She drives her hand into the nearest locker with Rick's fingers trapped in her fist and then squeezes harder.

"You raped my friend. Confess."

"I don't know what you-'

"Confess!"

Rick screams and screams. Kara learns that a further squeeze brings a higher pitch to his wailing.

"God, it's like she's juicing an orange," Brittni mumbles behind her. "Crazy bitch."

"Where I am from, what you did would disqualify you, your brothers, your sons and your father from the right to reproduce. Stop the rot before it spreads. So you got off cheap. I won't come back for the other one if you confess."

Kara lets go and puts her blood-free hands around Tonya's shoulder.

"Let's go eat under that oak tree," Kara suggests.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> STAR LABS ERRATA # 13804.1- Kryptonian Scout ship, recovered information -- Translated By Consultate 43 (anon, marked 'Linda Lee'
> 
> Subject: Krypton's Approach to Rape | Tags: disease eradication, medical treatment, social liberties, culture, sex work
> 
> In the 134806th year of the Unified Age, the Medical Guild had identified a pair of alleles linked to self-control, ego, empathy, and violence and possessive tendencies. These contained 44 genes total but So they knew the genetic tendency could be eliminated. All males had at least 3 but husband rapists had 6-9, habitual drug-rapists had 15-28 and violent rapists had 36-44 of these expressed.
> 
> The HIgh Council, long since having minimized prison use, developed a two-fold approach: isolating the perpetrators and breeding the trait out. Return to society would be in effect, organic, as it would be determined by the degree females. children and strangers willingly interacted. All prisoners received a tattoo on their wrists (both,100% opacity) and above the collarbone (50% opacity) and under the chin (100% opacity, high contrast). Any casual interactions, and certainly and intimate ones, made the discovery of these inevitable. Strangers could see the 'flamebirds red' of the chin marking several paces away. Potential sex partners would obviously detect them as well. Removing the tattoos was punishable with imprisonment and microsensors in the tattoos detected pheromones of nearby females. Approaching fertile females resulted in powerful electric shocks.
> 
> Kryptonian females need two to four months to prepare their body to conceive with a combination of diet, exercise, and mindful thinking. Prenatal car was mandatory and cost-free.
> 
> Any illicit pregnancies would be brought to term, adopted by the state, and segregated in the Military Guild's closed facilities.
> 
> Iteration One mostly died utterly alone, avoided by all in eyesight. Iteration Two began to take the retraining programs -- now administered by Martian mind-melders from victim's memories of the attacks -- seriously. Iteration Three was the last of any real size. Many ended up married (though childless) and others entered Sunset Temples as servants or as comforts for use by the acolytes, worshippers, and priestesses. By Iteration Five, a thousand cycles later, it was two individuals, a man and, unusually, a woman. They took their own lives in hopes of quashing the trait for all time.
> 
> Kryptonian women -- 24% higher average upper body strength and 58% higher average twitch reflex speed -- haven't needed more than a stern word or a step back since.
> 
> The only allele remaining is 35B-Zod-El, which a later two-House Team would discover had a higher relationship to food hoarding than rapist behavior.


	5. Know Her Worth, Know Her Strength

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where a young scientist is going to catch a cold if she doesn't take care of herself, Kara needs a hand with a secret project, Alex's tutoring wizardry is a legend, and something has to be regifted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place a few weeks after the Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman fight in _Dawn of Justice: Batman v. Superman_. Superman did not die, thanks to a high-speed impact with Doomsday that threw him out of Superman's path and into the shards of Kryptonite in the Batplane wreckage. Weakened, he proved no match for Diana and her blade. The reason for the momentary assist by a black-clad, anonymous figure who disappeared after one decisive blow is the subject of much speculation. Every news outlet on the planet is covering the fact that not only does Superman exist, Diana does and there's even a third one.
> 
> Fox News is losing all of its shit because a woman just sliced up a giant murder monster in an unladylike manner and proceeded to full-blast flirt with Lois Lane during the interview.

**Caitlin Snow | Star City, Oregon | August 23rd, 2005 | 11:55pm**

Frank shuffles by her workstation, pushing his mop bucket.

"You still here, little lady?"

"Bufy," Caitlin replies, making the pencil in her teeth shake. "Berking fard. Dig bebline."

"The paper says millennials are all lazy, just cruising through work. Better not see you here working so hard or I'll have to write a letter to the editor."

"Tha babers dul of spit," she replies. 

Caitlin spits the pencil out. 

"Bleh. Sorry. How long had I been doing that?"

"You've had that since I started at three."

After working her jaw back and forth, Caitlin suspects he's right.

He takes a foil-wrapped lump out of a metal lunchbox. Caitlin wafts it under her nose.

_Lasanga is my sexuality._

"You eat that right now, you hear me? It doesn't like being re-heated."

"Makes a girl feel unappreciated," Caitlin replies, cocking her hand before she catches herself.

He laughs a big, wide, father-of-nine and grandfather-of-twenty laugh that even Caitlin finds cute. He's all charm and energy and silly, Frank is friendlier than you'd expect in a janitor. He's never been over the line with her but that's partly because all the men in the office get daily leftovers too, and so does her boss's office mascot and local therapy cat. He's food-flirting but with the entire office so it's just Frank being Frank.

_The laugh explains why his wife didn't go on birth control until 1979._

"Down, girl," he jokes. "Save them smiles for Flintr or Matchstyk or whatever it's called."

"Yeah, yeah. Give Bethany a squeeze for me, Frank."

"Will do. I cleaned out the particle room and the utility room under the reactor. Extra shiny."

"Thanks. I've already wrote Ramon up for the wrappers but..." she shudders. "Last thing I need is a giant radioactive Snickers and saliva hybrid."

"Caitlin?"

"Yeah?"

"You're supported to be back at seven, right?"

"Yeah, why?"

Frank shakes his head.

"You need a place to nap, there's a couch in the ninth-floor utility room. It's bring your own blanket."

Caitlin pumps her fist.

"Lifehack!" 

He just shakes his head and shuffles off towards the timeclock.

=====

Caitlin licks her fingers and chases a drop of marinara down her palm. Her fork and knife are long forgotten. It would be a crime to not eat Bethany's best dish like a starving lunatic.

balls up the foil and shoves it in her bag. Never know what kind of fun you can have with 99.3% pure aluminum already in thin sheets.

It's just before three. If she gets three hours in and showers in the employee gym, she'll be fine. Howard always hogs the accelerator on Fridays anyway.

She sets her phone to white noise and lays back. Halfway through a routine her uncle learned in the Marines to sleep in the barracks, she's out cold.

=====

"Hi"

Caitlin jumps up so fast she sprains her ankle. It's still dark out.

_Five forty. I'm not going to get back. Just a weird little dream._

"Please let me in."

Turning her head towards the sound, Caitlin realizes there's an adorable blond kid outside the window. The ninth-floor window. The window of a ten-story building which was designed not to have any eaves, overhangs or balconies for security reasons. She's waving and her smile is far too bright for Caitlin's eyes right now and she has a coffee in each hand. She's waving as eagerly as she can without spilling. One of the cups has 'Caitlin' on it. Bare minimum, she needs to figure out how Sunshine McPerkytitties out there knows her name. She turns the crank to open the window and the blonde just sort of oozes in, like a cat squeezing into a box.

The smell hits her immediately and her stomach growls.

"Pumpkin spice? Gimme!"

Caitlin snatches it and sips.

"Oh god. Marry me," she groans.

"I mean, if you want," the blonde replies. "But I think we should get to know each other first."

The more nutmeg and sugar she gets into her, the more her faculties return.

"How old are you, kid?"

"Fourteen."

Caitlin sprays a mouthful of precious, life-giving coffee on the kid.

"So, just to be clear, I was joking just now."

A quick shrug of the shoulders knocks a braid out of place and shiny blonde hair peeks out from behind the kid's butt, shy and shiny. Like a stripper warming up.

"Yeah. I know. I'm here because I could use some help. Alex said you can help me?"

"Alex. Oh not, that fuckboy, no. Hard no. We broke up a while ago. Wait...Alex Danvers?"

A nod.

"Oh boy, so you probably know how utterly clusterfucked I would've been without her in school."

"She hinted as much, yeah."

Caitlin watches the girl, flips through some possible ways this could get her fired and decides to risk it. She who accidentally hairporns in mid-sentence while avoiding eye contact is probably not a corporate spy. Probably.

"I'm listening."

"I need a haircut and I need to knit something."

"And you're here at Star Labs. Calling in a favor."

"Yup. I'm Kara, by the way."

"Caitlin Snow, as you apparently know."

"Why did you come to a high-energy physicist in a DOD-funded lab for a haircut?"

Her weird new friend floats off the floor and...so...does...her hair. Caitlin sighs and throws her now-empty cup aside.

"Fine. Wouldn't be the weirdest thing I do with work today. What do you need?"

"Your hydrogen compression engine has like, a maintenance hatch, right? Ours were usually single-cast shells."

"Our what?"

She spins one hand around the other then throws her hands apart and mimics an explosion.

"Fusion reactor downstairs? I suppose it must."

"Great. And no one's going to interrupt us in the laser array until lunch, right?"

Caitlin bonks her head on the wall.

"The alien. From Gotham. The one who moved like Superman. Who saved Superman from launching himself dickfirst into the mutant turtle of murder. Probably saved his life. That was you?"

"Got it one. High five!"

Caitlin meets it.

"He's my cousin. He's all growed up," the girl sniffs.

"And why do you want me to help yo-"

Then it clicks. Fusion reactor. Exowatt laser. If Superman can take a high-yield nuke in orbit and come back with that cowlick intact, that hair not something that you can cut in normal conditions. She _needs_ Caitlin.

"Right. Makeover time, kid."

She leads Kara down the stairwell, glancing at each floor to make sure there's no one watching. Sure enough, there's a maintenance hatch.

"Right, let's get started."

Kara whips her hoodie and T-Shirt over her head, followed by her bra. 

"Whoa!"

"If I want clothes for the flight home, I can't wear this in there. No one here but us girls," Kara reminds her. "Turn around if you want."

Caitlin's pretty sure she twisted her ankle turning around so fast.

"I hate you," Caitlin grumbles. "That was holding them _down,_ not pushing them up."

"How do you think I fly? By _increasing_ my atoms' relationship to gravity?" Kara chortles. "I had to learn to kind of stick to the ground, just enough. If it were up to my body, I'd just waft around. Also why my hair floats. Only sometimes though. Can't control it yet, the hair. Something with the fluid. At the ends, it doesn't behave."

"So your hair's not dead, like human hair?"

Kara hums thoughtfully.

"Not fully, anyway. Outer layers are similar, scales of chitinous material. It's more like how celery works? Until the far ends at the tips, it's filled with a mostly saltwater fluid but it's about one half my blood cells. The weakened ones that are small enough to filter in and thus aren't any good for oxygen transfer. Our bodies use it to cool off, letting the heat transfer from the blood through a silica-rich lining in the pore. It grew crazy fast after I landed here, probably because my powers ramped everything up. Like, I have to eat fifty thousand calories a day. Only been like five weeks, Earth time since it was a pixie cut."

"No way. That's probably five feet."

"Yup. Hence, haircut. I think Alex and I cooked up a way to inhibit it so it's manageable and sort of tapers off and crumbles once the cells are far enough away from the pores. I"m always going to have long hair about this long though."

=====

When the reactor spins down, the capacitors for the initiating lasers are at three percent energy. The heads of departments are doing the rounds in three hours and they are going to find the most advanced reactor on Earth sitting here like a Ford Pinto out of gas.

"Fuck me with a shovel."

Kara emerges, beaming, with what looks like enough yellow fibers to rig the sails of a pirate ship. She's not only unharmed, her skin is glowing from residual heat.

"You all right? Look kinda scared."

"We depleted all capacitors. I can't restart it now and people will notice. Like, my boss, his boss, her boss, and probably the Secretary of Defense. They were visiting today to decide if I stay funded."

Kara chews her lip. Her lip looks damp and soft and pillowy and wet like strawberry bubblegum.

_Really need to change my settings back to men AND women._

"Can it run continually, in a steady-state?"

"I mean, that's the goal, right? Self-sustaining fusion, clean energy, whatnot."

_Kara grins._

"Got any liquid hydrogen and graphene lattices?"

"Probably here in this supply cupbo-"

Caitlin finds it and tosses it over her shoulder. Wherever Kara's from, being naked must not be a big thing.

"Watch this," Kara crows. 

Thirty seconds later, Kara tosses a cube of graphene towards the open chamber that she just filled with liquid hydrogen. Before it enters the gas, two lines of cherry-red heat pour from her eyes. She hits it dead center and then slams the door shut, blocking the gaps with her bare skin. A four-billion dollar reactor that takes weeks to get ready flicks on like a backyard barbecue someone tossed burning newspaper in.

"Holy fucking shit. How?"

"Heat vision."

"I get that," Caitlin snaps. "I mean how the everloving fuck did you _guess_ the correct temperature, timing and for that matter, the force of the throw? Just off the top of your head? You just did nuclear fusion like tossing a dart into a ballon!"

"It was extra credit my third year back home," Kara explains, and thank everything good and holy she's shimmying into her pants when she does it. 

"Like a science fair. Minimum components, maximum output. I did nearly vaporize my dad's study though..."

Caitlin wrings her hands.

"Could you like, help me? Like Alex did? This is what I've been telling my boss could happen and you just proved it. Can you give me the framework? Even a nudge? I know I have to do the math myself but I've got three competing models and I have no clue which that was."

"You want to be the person who breaks the fusion barrier for humanity?"

"I guess, yeah."

"Good. That's one of three parts of the first Great Filter. If you can't beat that, your species will not go to space. Well, in a meaningful way."

"I'd also get pretty rich, I suppose."

"Still a good deed," Kara chortles. "Humans are utterly fucked if they can't get past fossil fuels and staying on one planet only is a bad move risk wise. We used to be spread out, then we pulled in. Had to build up all but scraps of our entire landmass to absorb the colonies. Cities hundreds of kilometers tall just to stuff billions of people into each. My hometown had a population equal to Africa and Asia with enough for some random European countries. All because of some religious shit about sixty thousand of your years ago."

"Well, that was dumb," Caitlin replies.

Kara's lip trembles.

"You're telling that to the last female of her species and the last member of my religion, my profession, and last fluent speaker of my language. Don't have to remind me."

"Yeah. Sorry."

"Happy to help. But if you invent a unified planetary government and self-upgrading AI that powers automated workforces, I want co-authorship. Deal?"

They shake on it.

"Deal."

"Great. Where's this laser? I need to meld these fibers before they fully cool. I'll grab a spool at Home Depot or whatever."

"Follow me."

Caitlin beckons Kara down the hallway after checking. She puts her hands on the push bar for the laser lab and yelps.

"What? Electrified or something?"

"Shoudn't be. Oh fuck!" 

Her hands are frozen tight to the steel. Her first aid textbook had some grisly shit but it didn't show any frostbite that bad. If she pulls, half the tissue is going to come off.

"Explains a lot," Kara mutters. "I wondered why your circulatory system was running so fast but your body temperature was so low."

"What the hell?"

"Metahuman theory," Kara replies like it's just nothing at all to reply that Caitlin is one of a yet-unproven pool of human beings with abilities that defy common sense _and_ science.

"Fat chance. I'm not special."

"Breath on the window, please."

Caitlin does. Frost spreads on it like she'd sprayed it with liquid nitrogen.

"The fuck?"

"Another pass or two."

_Why not?_

Caitlin blows and blows until she's gasping to recover.

Kara leans over her shoulder and stares at the glass.

"Well, if you want to go into a life of crime, you're set. That'd shatter if you sneezed on it too hard."

"That's bulletproof, fireproof, saw-proof and wire-reinforced glass."

"So it is," Kara muses. "Thought about a superhero name yet?"

"Something snow? Wait, no. Too close to my real identity. Something frost."

"Killer Frost?" Kara suggests.

"Why not?"

Caitlin rips her hand off the bar without thinking. Nothing breaks. Nothing tears. Nothing bleeds. She does have a spike of ice sticking out the palm of her hand though.

"Damn. That's badass," Kara mutters.

_Again with the lip teasing._

"Says the girl with laser vision."

"Says the girl with X-ray vision. That's dense. The molecules are almost mathematically perfect layers. That's like, glacier-dense ice. Stronger than steel."

"Now, how about you help with my knitting project?"

Kara pouts and it's _fucking unfair_ how much it makes Caitlin want to do anything and everything for those big blue eyes _._ She holds up the armful of hair that is still, for some fucking reason, glowing in the dimly light hallway.

=====

Caitlin is startled from her email inbox coma by a sharp whistle.

"Dr. Snow?"

"Yes, direc-"

She scrambles to her feet. She knows the drill so she just grabs hands and starts shaking them.

"Hello, Mr. Secretary. General, sir. General, sir. Admiral, ma'am. Welcome to my lab, humble and," she sighs. "cluttered as it is."

Her boss holds up a printout of a cell phone picture. A picture of the control panel for Spin Cycle reading 100% power and three hours running time.

"What the hell is this? Explain."

Just to prevent her brain from fucking her over, Caitlin tucked the notepad under her keyboard. She picks it up and wings it at her boss. It smacks him in the chest.

"All there. A completely different branch of thinking from my prior work," she adds, sauntering over to the coffee machine. "Thus, _not_ subject to the patents I signed over."

"So..." she teases, smirking at three of the Joint Chiefs over the rim of the mug. "Howard, I think I'll take a promotion now, and I get to hire my pick of the newbies. Although I am open to being poached. Admiral, if you've got any cute midshipmen, or women, that you can send home with me naked, I'll give the Navy a loyalty discount."

"Fucksake. Snow, quit being an ass! Ramon!"

Cisco leans over from his desk.

"Yeah?"

He hands Cisco the pad.

_Do not fuck me over, Cisco. I let you borrow my Firefly boxed set, remember?_

"This is just like, her grocery list, right?"

He puts his glasses on.

"No, it's real. Shit, this is not what I expected but, yeah. It's a good idea. Using a high-energy impact of a heated slug and an overdense fuel supply to lessen the need for a kickstart. Brings the ignition energy cost under the energy output. Finally."

Her boss stomps out. The Army and Air Force follow him.

"Can't offer you any midshipmen, young lady. But I have a railgun testing facility in Hawaii that's a one hour hike from a five-star hotel, resort, and condos."

"I know. That's why I got your attention, not theirs."

She offers her hand.

"Deal, Admiral?"

"Deal, Doctor. I must say, that took guts. Shutting down your boss like that. Cold-hearted bitch after my own heart. How soon can you transfer?"

"I don't have a cat or houseplants, and if Cisco wants the job, he can pack up my apartment. Swing through a McDonalds and I'm a free agent."

"I've got a Sea Stallion at the airport and I can get an Air Force C-5 to link up at Lackland tomorrow. We need to haul some gear anyway. Can you work and walk at the same time?"

Caitlin nods.

"Excellent. See you in two hours at the airport. Show them this badge."

The admiral leaves and Ramon just keeps _gawking_ at her.

"Marry me, please. I beg you. That was crazy smart. Ergo, crazy sexy."

"Can't. I told someone I'd wait for them."

* * *

**Alex Danvers | Johns Hopkins University | August 24rd, 2005 | 09:08am**

Alex wakes with a groan. Rachel is smirking at her from over her coffee cup.

"Fuck. Pop. Quizzes," Alex whines. "Oof. Martinis should be banned during the semester."

Rachel scoots her chair over.

"Drink up, gorgeous."

She cups Alex's chin and tilts it up to meet the cup. Her blunt nails scratch at Alex's scalp.

"Mmm. S'nice."

"There there, my little baby gay. This hangover too shall pass."

They muddle through the morning as usual. Coffee, Pop-Tarts, actual food, makeout, Alex getting fingered into a gooey lump, breaking apart for homework. Rachel did her homework last night and Alex did most of hers, meaning that her fourth attempt to re-read a chapter is ended with a bite to the shoulder and Rachel's hands pinning Alex's to the wall.

"Face to the wall, ass out. Now."

Apparently Alex didn't move fast enough because Rachel jerks down her sweats and grabs her hips and yanks her back so hard there's a slap. She licks the shell of Alex's ear and scratches her nails up the sides of Alex's ribcage.

Of course _now_ is the moment there's a knock on the door.

"Just don't answer it," Alex suggests.

"Wasn't..." Rachel grunts. "Planning to."

There's a click of brass on brass, followed by a low buzz.

_Oh fuck. I know that sound._

Rachel runs the head of the wand along the globes of Alex's ass.

"Lube," Alex croaks.

She hears a click and a whir and a splat sound. Turned out the touchless dispenser on Rachel's table was not filled with hand sanitizer, Alex learned when they moved in together.

There's another three knocks and then the door cracks open.

"Oh my," the stranger chortles. "Sorry. They gave me this one-use keycard."

"You fucking mind? Go away!" Alex screeches.

The stranger clicks the door behind her. She's in a long red sundress with white color blocks. She tall, tanned, dirty blonde -- natural, if her eyebrows and the faint curls in her armpits are to be believed -- and carrying what looks like a lawyers briefcase but twice the size.

She pulls out Alex's chair.

"Name's Clarice," she says. "Fun story. Here I am, just your friendly neighborhood call girl. Belle du jour. Courtesan. Lady of the evening. Whore, probably is best since it's old school. Sounds like someone you'd find in a corset in London. Because I shit you not, a box of gold bullion shows up at my door. Few coins at the top for operating expenses. Note says to have the gold verified and put in secure storage and gives me an address."

Rachel turns the vibe back on and leans into Alex.

"Look, you can talk but she's cute and I'm horny and we're doing this."

"Rachel, put your damn clothes on! I can- _ohfuuuuuuuuck_ ," Alex groans.

"My turn to top," Rachel explains with a glance over her shoulder.

"I can see that. So anyway, I'm used to being paid by the hour. You are what, sophomores. Lessee. Computer science and pre-med, right?"

"How did you know?" Alex gasps.

"My job is, first and foremost, being good with people. The only people who look that fried without the aid of meth are medical students. Only person I ever met who used one of those," she says, pointing at the harness with the insanely high powered vibrator that Rachel is pressing so hard into Alex's ass the rattling through her bones might get her off.

"Was a startup programmer. Ground floor. Turned stock options into strapons, y'know?"

"Well, anyway. Most times, it's an hour or three or a date to a wedding -- those are always fun -- some of the good clients, the ones I don't fake for very much, might have a weekend. So imagine my surprise when I'm paid enough to be booked through your entire residency, Alex."

"How did you know my name?"

"Well, like always, I carded the client when we met. I have a friend who sent me a cracked copy of a government app. Her fake was good, real good. But not stolen-CIA-software good."

"She was way too young?" Alex asks.

_Kara, you stupid little shit! And she's apparently gone back to that cave of hers for her little chemistry projects._

"Waaaaay too young," Clarice agrees. "Honest mistake, really. She looked older. Hence, always checking. Now, with these new internet crackdowns, she probably could have had me thrown in for life if she'd reported me. So I tell her to get dressed and please explain and I'll give her money back. She did. Said to keep the money. Something about honor and that I should be proud of my courage to do this job, et cetera. I lied. Said I would keep as a gift. Hopped a Greyhound."

Clarice clicks open the briefcase.

"So, I did the only moral thing. I regifted myself."

"You know what?" Rachel sighs. "I do have a baby gay here who barely gets to three before she's a pile of weepy jello. I know you are kind of ashamed about that, Alex, right?"

"Kinda."

"Well, Clarice. If it's all right with Alex..."

"Sure, ask me when all my blood is in my clit," Alex grumbles. "Just take advang- _fuckfuckdon'tstopdon'tstopdon'tstopbabe."_

"I do have nine levels in loosening up shy intro lesbians. Forty-five in Obsidian Warlock."

"Ha!" Rachel crows. "What server?"

"God, PvE of course. I pop over to deathmatch sometimes but I hear enough rape threats on my cam channel."

Alex comes again, then again, then again too fast to recover. She collapses before Rachel can catch her and her head clips the desk.

"Honey! I'm sorry. I'll go get an icepack or something," Rachel mutters.

"Clearly," Clarice teases. "She's too sexy to stand up, too sexy to die. She does look like could use some more coaching. More than you two could balance with your class load. And I imagine you," she says before flicking Alex's nose. "Are going to be a much better doctor if your head's on straight, pun intended, during your residency. Here's my proposal. I grab the next room over, take a few classes, and we see what happens. Alex, if you have a test or something and you're fried, text me. I'll be here on my knees, naked, tongue out and fast food in hand."

"Alex," Alex huffs. "Alex Danvers."

"Rachel Roth, by the way. Cult escapee and evil sex wizard. Here, baby."

"Thanks."

Alex touches it to the wound, hisses, and pulls it back. No blood.

"Owwwww."

"I'm guessing you two are a thing?"

"Yeah," Rachel sighs. "Not saying you can't play but you're in charge of you not catching feelings. She's mine. My everything. Y'know?"

Alex flops around until she can grab Rachel's hand.

"I know. I know, Rach."

* * *

**Brittni Daniels | Midvale, Maryland | August 24rd, 2005 | 09:08am**

Kara slaps the knot at the end of the rope into her palm. The rope is golden and glowing and Brittni knows it's silky soft from the last time it was looped around her neck.

"Now, Brit. You were unhappy, right? That's why you bullied Tonya?"

"Yes." 

Thwack. Brittni feels the tremble rising upwards from her toes.

Thawck. She feels her pussy clamp around nothing and _oh god Kara can see that why did I let her do this_ and then Kara smiles.

"You're happier, right?"

Brittni nods.

"Tell me why," Kara orders, rubbing the back of her hand down Brittni's bare back.

"Because I don't have to be tough. I'm relaxed."

"Why are you relaxed, Brit-Brit?"

"Because I'm safe with you. I don't have to push people away. The other girls don't matter. And you tell me that I'm pretty and that I'm good."

"That's right," Kara reminds her. "Submission to a loving mistress is how we become our best selves."

"I've got you a treat, Brit-Brit. That boy you like?"

"Seth?"

"I invited him here to play with you. I told him you couldn't go steady, but he doesn't know you belong to me. I'm going to be in your closet, so you know I can keep you safe. Snap your fingers four times if you need me."

"Kay. Thank you," Brittni sniffs.

"Oh, Brit," Kara coos. "It's fine to like boys. I like watching you with boys. I like looking at some boys but I haven't found the right one yet. I actually found someone who could teach us a lot of stuff and I paid her a lot of money so we can email her questions whenever. She'll send us books or videos or whatever, so we can learn new things."

She drags her fingers up the back of Brittni's head.

"He'll be here in two hours. So. Close your eyes."

Thwack. Swish. Thwack.

"Scoot forward on your knees. Now open your eyes."

Brittni does and her stomach flips. Kara's there, all of her. She's used the rope to tie one of her legs back to that arm and keep it way back. She's leaning back against the edge of Brittni's bed. She's seen Kara naked and she's stared at the damp tangle of bronze hair and she even touched it once. It was soft, like wet rabbit fur, but Kara pulled her back.

"I wanted to," Brittni mumbles. "taste you."

"I know, baby, I'm sorry you had to wait. You know why."

"You thought you might hurt me, because you're so strong."

"That's right. This way, I can't close down. If you're scared, you can get out from in between. If I lose control, it's only on the right side. Hand me that coconut, please."

Rachel does and Kara puts it between her thighs.

"Now, the knot up there, see which one?"

Rachel swallows.

"Yeah."

"It's loose."

Kara squeezes once and the coconut cracks in half. The grocery store guy cracked the other ones with a hammer and a metal wedge.

"Snack for my little pet," Kara jokes. "Just tear pieces off and put them in my hand."

"Yes, Kara. Can I taste you?"

"Eat a little first. And then tighten that not. Then you can."

Brittni eats faster than she thinks she ever did before. Then she pulls on the knot and leans forward. Kara gasps softly and throws her head back. She sighs softly and puts her free hand on Brittni's head.

"Such a good, good, good girl..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PHYSICS NOTE:  
> While the ancient "alchemical" approach of turning lead into gold is not possible, like all elements, gold is manufactured in the core of stars, specifically, red giant or larger (as are all heavier than iron elements). Kara Zor-El has a pair of atomic recombination units located in a flooded cave near Midvale, primarily used to create non-Earth elements for her mechanical creations. Heat is contained in a superdense magnetic field, waste neutrons and protons are shuttled into the fuel system and one half are stripped to anti-protons, and the system uses gravity manipulators of a frigate-sized starship for compression.
> 
> Using a 2:2:1 ratio and a 200% percent of yield mixture of lead, chrome and copper, she can convert, or rather squeeze and burn, lead into gold.
> 
> These sudden increases of market gold are attributed to a defunct mine in Montana that was "restarted" by an AI driven shell company and is operated by drones holo-disguised as humans. In actuality, this mine yields zinc, chromium, cesium, and titanium for Kara's projects and has been enlarged by 10km in depth and 400% in miles of tunnel.


	6. Laws of the Jungle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Alex has less time or her sister, Kara develops a strange new hobby, and we get another visit from our special guests.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I actually don't know a whole lot about Rizzoli and Isles but I do love the whole suave-one-smitten-with-awkward-one bit (Hi, Carmilla and Laura!) so here goes. I never watched the show so these probably are like 1% related to the characters.  
> 

### TWO YEARS LATER

**Jane Rizzoli | Omaha, Nebraska | December 26th, 2007**

Maura is driving, zeroed in laser-tight on the road, the turn signals, everything. Operating a Hertz sedan that smells suspicious like a fighter pilot in combat, her eyes flicking here and there and meticulous flicking the turn signal lever or the cruise controls.

Hyperfocused, the therapist calls it. She told Jane it was understandable that sometimes the other partner felt ignored in those moments. Don’t take it personally. They didn’t snub the chores, they forgot to do the dishes, they still love you, etc.

Jane’s pretty sure the therapist peed herself a little when she ugly-laughed at that.

That’s not the hard part of their marriage. The hard part is figuring out _where_ all the dishes are on the weeks she washes them. Retracing her steps on the deck. Was she working on that loose screw on the back door? Coffee cup with the Philips in it. She was updating the antivirus on the computer because the red X saying it needed it was driving her mad. Day before yesterday. Then she came in and asked about batteries, for some reason. Sure enough, cookie plate is behind the tower where she plugged the keyboard back in. Never broken, never dirty or attracting flies, often accompanied by a wet wipe in the nearest wastebasket. Once clean, and drained of nutrition they’re just set down. No longer relevant to the task being focused on.

The weeks Maura does the dishes, they’re not only kept track of, they’re stacked largest to smallest and probably ready to use in open heart surgery. Because that’s the task and she make the effort to focus on it.

Mar uses her brain like a laser and it typically works, except for sometimes her hand slips and Jane comes home to a repainted wall they were maybe going to start next weekend or a lovely, pinprick-sharp sketch of something ridiculous, like a faucet. Because the aim slipped and the laser burned into something else.

A few times when the world overwhelms her and Maura’s a bomb, sudden and teary and everywhere and Jane isn’t enough, doesn’t feel like enough no matter how close she holds her.

This morning, it was like a bomb. She couldn’t find anything new in that awful hotel room. However carefully she looked, even rocking twice the IQ points of the coroners present (assuming averages, as Mar would say) between her cute little ears.

Nothing.

Just a dead girl bent up in a bathtub and a fat, slimy Russian with his pants around his ankles and his neck broken so bad the bone peeked out. Maura realized he collapsed on top of her. She died first, probably from nature never intending anything remotely that awful and a ninety-pound kid not being meant to breathe while holding up the four hundred point rapist on top of them. She was bundled up in a blanket from the bed like a shroud and he was left broken on the bathroom floor.

Jane felt like throwing up. Mar just walked the room three times, looked at everything three times, then started shaking and Jane bundled her out. They have a code, a script, and they used it this morning.

 _‘Anything?’_ Jane will ask.

 _‘Nothing else’,_ Mar will say.

Nothing else to be learned in that little room. Nothing to do but hug Maura and bury her face in Jane and let her ease down.

_‘It’s hard. It’s too much.’_

_‘I know.’_

_‘I’m sorry.’_

_‘Don’t be. I do.’_

_‘I do.’_

When Jane can’t handle the stumbling apologies she doesn’t need or the rambling, she says I do. Like she did in that gazebo last May. I do. Maura’s vows were in iambic pentameter, Jane would later learn, and glorious, but she panicked and ended up with just two words. Two words that contained everything in the universe so Jane uses them to remind Maura that she’s everything and that it’s fine and whatever she needs she gets.

“You know why the agency lets us work together like this? In the field, I mean?”

“You quit the police and joined this weird secret agency so we could work together?”

“No. Shoot. Actualy, that would’ve been smart to do but no."

“You ask them to?”

“No, actually, I stopped asking. They always said no. Just started doing it no matter what.”

“We get results?”

“Strangely, no. Unrelated to that I think. Other top teams don’t get to bring their wives and not get yelled at.”

“Stop teasing me, Jane. You know I’m not good with humor.”

“It’s fine, baby.”

“I’m fully mature,” Mar snaps.

_Oh, I know, I know..._

“Right. Sorry," Mar inhales. "Not what you meant by it. Just tell me, please.”

“Bangor case.”

“Bangor case? How is that related?”

“The shootout, specifically. Required reading at Quantico apparently. Tactical and profilers. Remember?”

Maura nods, slowly, and Jane knows she’s zipping through the whole exchange in her memory. Five mobsters, none of them who had an angle on them _yet_ and they’re huddled down behind a lobster boat’s crane controls and the choice is ocean and freeze or peek outside and get your brains sprayed.

“Throw wrench, he’ll flinch, shoot his foot,” Maura recalls. “Angry, he will pop up or in pain, he’ll slip. Shoot again. Large man at nine o’clock on the nearby pier, shoot once. Small man closer on the other pier, one shot to suppress. The distant man near food truck, shoot until no ammunition. Reload, shoot at nine. Throw lever, run to me and jump into the water.”

“Exactly. That’s my girl!”

“How is it significant?”

“Everyone, everyone who looked at the case wondered first, how we survived and second, why we shot food truck guy. Heck, I’m not one hundred percent sure.”

“A large man would feel bold enough to charge because he won the bar fight that morning and you and I, collectively, weighed less. Small men in such groups typically attempt to overcompensate. Covering fire would induce him to retreat.”

“Agreed. Big guys like to swing it around, small guys try too hard. Taco truck guys?”

“Opportunist. I remembered from the bar fight. The bikers. The other four were aroused by violence. Not sexually, but physically excited watching it. He ignored it. No dilation of the pupils, no increase in breathing. Nothing. If he were trying to ignore it, which implies effort, his affect would change. Drank his beer. He ignored us, until he saw you approach the bar. You entered a range where you could threaten him and he reacted to you. Distracted you. Asked you which bed and breakfast, if it was our honeymoon. You took your drink and leaves and he lost interest. No other men present lost interest in you at any time.”

“Flatterer.”

Maura holds a finger up like a professor having a Eureka moment. This is a fun fact and Jane’s job is to shut up and stare lovingly at this weird little woman in her life.

“Ergo, sociopath. The fact that he didn’t care for the fight suggested he was not also a sadist. Statistically unlikely to have tortured animals as a boy. He just didn’t care about anything except his beer, which pleasured him, and possibly getting arrested, which did not.”

Mar shivers.

“In that moment, his motivation was killing you. That was his job and the money it brought him allowed him to purchase beer. Et cetera. He would kill you as soon as it was possible and with as little effort as possible. For him, geometry. Nothing else. No need to brace for the psychological strain. No interest in proving himself. Just ‘can I hit her from here’ and nothing else. I needed him dead more than the others because I couldn’t help you predict him. Couldn’t protect you.”

Jane squeezes her wife’s thigh and if the rest of the office knew how her gasps and her ‘oh’ escapes her like steam in a sauna, they would never have thought she was weird or robotic. Best they don’t know.

“You’re really smart, I ever tell you that?”

“Occasionally.”

“Bit hard to get your attention though.”

“You threatened to fuck me on a morgue table!”

“We’d been flirting for months! Besides, we did make it to the closet first. Ironically.”

“I’d been mimicking ordinary conversation!” Maura complains. “I thought, at the time. Incorrectly.”

“Yeah, except with me, you were _focused_ on it.”

“Oh. Ohhhhh!”

“Yeah. You laughing at my jokes was like being the center of the universe, Mar.”

“Drove me nuts when something else got your attention because then it was getting _all that fire_ and I wasn't. I got madly jealous of your breakfast on four or five occasions. I wasn’t sure we were an option, never can be sure when you’re gay, but I thought, how would a great scientist like Dr. Maura Isles solve this? A hypothesis. So, there you are. I make some joke, you make a little grunt noise because you’re focused on pulling Asshole John Doe’s liver out because you’re pretty sure the acid didn’t destroy it and if he had that particular cirrhosis, it was a Fontanelli.”

“I tell you you’re cute, little ‘mmm’ sound. So yeah, I said that. I ask if I can throw you on the morgue table and fuck you stupid. I even pointed at the table for a clue. You make another little hmm. Hypothesis proved. I wasn’t focus for you.”

Maura smiles.

“You said ‘From now on, I want you to look at me and focus when I’m speaking to you, Dr. Isles.’ and I did. And you repeated yourself, word for word. And I wanted to and I said yes.”

=====

“We’re here, Jane.”

“Right. Next up on the Interstate of Horror tour.”

Maura leaps out of the car, eager to use her brain, and scarcely manages to get her badge out before she’s at the patrolman’s twenty-one feet, in the danger zone where he'll shoot her out of panic.

“She’s a federal criminal pathologist and profiler, and I’m Agent Rizzoli. We just drove straight through from Denver chasing this case from the last kill and longer you stand there like a broken screen door, grumpier I get. Shoo.”

Jane follows after rubbing her legs that really never belonged in that tiny little car. She needed to return some blood to them. The patrolman wanders off like a high school kid off to smoker's corner.

“Wow. If he’s their thin blue line, in their largest city, I’m moving out of Nebraska...and I live in _Oregon_.”

“We do, Jane.”

“Yeah, I know. We. Still feels unreal waking up every morning and you’re next to me. Or you’re not, off doing whatever.”

“Statistically, the best solve rates on murders like this are in small, remote communities with a sheriff who lives in town and has served less than fifteen, but not less than three years.”

“Isn’t that just one guy?”

“Sample size of 3,000 departments, actually. Longitudinal, to account for the towns with only very occasional homicides. Ten points above NYPD, sixteen above national average.”

“Yeah, but they _know_ everybody. And the have to run for re-election. So they care. The whole town knew who it was before the body hit the ground.”

“His patrol route,” Maura says, looking back. “Is likely one to three miles. Single-family dwellings, that’s 800 to 1,400 people. A small town. He could know all of them, if he wanted.”

The homicide detective waiting for them outside the motel room snorts. She’s Latina and she’s tiny and wiry and sizzles with fuck-off energy from ten feet away.

“If she doesn't like Hansen, I like her already. Detective Olivia Gonzalez.”

“Jane Rizolli, Wikipedia here is Dr. Isles.”

“You’re treating these as linked, right?” Gonzalez asks.

“Yeah, why?”

“Means I don’t have to tell you how bad it’s going to be. We get these fuckers a lot. Interstate lets ‘em move girls fast. They're over state lines into Iowa before we can sneeze. They groom them and bring them back for the College World Series or the Cornhusker football games in Lincoln.”

“This guy got his comeuppance, sounds like.”

“Sure did. Doctor, after you.”

She lifts the tape. Inside is a bear-shaped man, again with the Russian army tats, with his head on almost totally backwards and a right arm that’s swollen like a sausage.

“You have any theories?” Gonzalez asks.

“Vigilante,” Jane and Maura reply at once.

“No shit, like are we talking Gotham or Metropolis here?”

“Unsure. The killer's interest in sex trafficking suggests either past victimhood, likelier a female, or a grieving parent, which likelier to be a father due to male methods of processing grief.”

Jane gestures at Maura.

“She got onto this after the Taos scene. Cute little handprint on the stiff’s wrist. In bruises. Under which were powdered bones.”

“So, female?” Gonzalez asks.

“Working theory,” Maura mumbles, swamping lenses and taking the cap in her teeth.

“Give me that,” Jane says with a laugh, taking the lens cap.

“Obviously, cause of death is internal decapitation. Torsion would have severed the nerve bundle regardless of bone fracture.”

Maura snaps a few more shots.

“Unless there was a strike to the temple prior. If his eyeglasses cracked, leverage increases and that would actually have led to bone shards entering the brain and killing faster than the lack of oxygen. Check that during the autopsy.”

“I was just going to say that,” Gonzalez cracks. “She's thorough and God, she’s adorable.”

“She’s taken.”

“Shoot. She’s a one-off, too. Clearly.”

Maura blinks.

“Clearly. I’m the only one here. Other victim?”

“Bathtub. We got her out breathing so sorry if we mucked the evidence in there.”

“It’s all right,” Maura sighs, rather dramatically. “Living victims are usually more beneficial than spatter patterns. Usually.”

“She’s joking right now, right? Because I’m getting an adorkable vampire vibe right now.”

There’s a little huffing sound. Jane freezes.

“Mar, babe. Shut up.”

She does but she looks hurt.

“Detective, you hear that?”

“Yeah. Like a draft or the AC but we cut the power to it.”

“Bathroom,” Jane decides. “Ready?”

“On three.”

Turns out it’s a thirteen-year-old girl, skinny one too, and she responds to being rescued by flailing at Jane with her skinny hands. She even gets a lucky jab to the solar plexus and Jane grunts and waits her out, grinding her teeth.

“Jeez, lady! I just thought she was funny!”

Maura comes over. The girl is wearing three of the motel’s bathrobes.

“Are you injured little one?”

“I’m not little!”

“You re shorter than her,” She gestures at Jane. “As am I. And you are the only one of you here so, little, and one. As I am the only me here, we are both little and both ones.”

The kid sniffles and smiles, sort of, at that.

_Nasty place to find out she's good with kids..._

“Where are your clothes, sweetie?”

“She wanted me to have clothes,” the kid shrugs. "We didn't but they had these."

“Ah, of course,” Maura teases. “Three bathrobes is one third as naked as one.”

“Hmph. Weirdo. M’fine. She didn’t hurt me. Just them.”

“Them?” Gonzalez asks.

“Yeah. Him and him and him.”

She points to the corpse and then to two spots on the wall where the minibar and the TV had a mixup and started a fire. Where there’s nothing but blackened wallpaper.

Maura whips out her blacklight and sweeps the wall.

“Hmm.”

“Could you have the female officer come in, please? The blonde one? Logically, if female, our killer is large and athletic or she would be unable to generate the necessary force.”

“Oooohkay, but hands to yourself. I’ve been working that angle for months,” Gonzalez jokes.

The blonde is pale-skinned with green eyes. She’s substantial but she’s coltish too. Her curves and muscles are stretched over a long frame full of nervous energy so she still seems pixielike. Light on her feet like at any moment she could break into motion and just be gone. Jane doesn't blame Gonzalez one bit. The stolen glances at Gonzalez and the woman not knowing what to do with her hands in Gonzalez's presence suggest she’s gayer than Jane is, hard though that is to do.

“Stand here, please, officer.”

“How tall are you?”

“Six three, doctor.”

“Good. Weight?”

“Um, one sixty. Ish.”

She blushes and looks away from Gonzalez.

“Good. Logical, given your height. Northern European, obviously. Stand here, please. Hold your hand out towards the wall, like you’re holding a man by the neck. Eye-level with his face. One-handed. Thank you.”

Maura twists some dial and turns her black light on full blast.

“Remarkable,” she murmurs.

There, in thin traces of charred flesh, is the outline of the gaps in a woman’s closed fist. Following the edges, she finds partial outlines of a man's jaw and his nose.

“Thank you officer, I believe you just cracked the case. Let’s take the girl’s statement at face value. Whatever killed them burned hot and quick enough that this ash here is not wallpaper but essentially, cremated remains. The wall, however, is not burned severely enough to allow for such temperatures over time.”

“The presence of the hand reminds me of the _hitokage no ishi_ In Hiroshima. Human Shadow Etched in Stone. It’s thought to be the outline of a man who died instantly in the bombing. The bank's steps survived and have a shadow on it, similar to the shadow he would have cast in from a light source. And yet…”

“And yet,” Jane agrees. “Our killer’s hand was right in the middle of all that.”

Maura nods.

“So it’s Metropolis. Not Gotham.”

“Do you remember anything else, sweetie?” Gonalez asks.

“Uh, yelling? It wasn’t in English. Sounded kinda like music. Like the X-Files theme? That singer.”

“Enya?” Maura asks.

“Sure, I guess. But was definitely yelling. She pulled that one off me, and crunch! Then she lifted them both at the same time and just poof, poof!”

“What next?”

“She got out this needle and some tubes and went into the bathroom. Did something to Tiffany, I guess. I’m surprised she was still alive. She was just a lump in the bathtub. You could see gray stuff where her head hit the tub.”

“The one we got out,” Gonzalez adds. “She was bad but I don’t know the details.”

“Comes back out, comes over to me, asks if I’m hurt. I say no, she goes into the other room. I hear some weird noises, then lots and lots of talking in there. Next morning, she comes out, hands us all money for food and burner phones and she leaves.”

“What?” Jane, Maura and Gonzalez yell.

“Yeah, she was here like, almost three days. Brought us pizza, made sure we had a way to reach our parents. I mean, this was after she covered him up so he wouldn’t freak us out.”

"She touch you?" Gonalez asks, shaking. "This is so fucked up!"

"Um, no. Wait. Yes. Once. Only when we played Jenga and we tried to grab the same piece."

“She left. Took the twins with her. Not really twins. They’re just lookalikes someone special ordered so it looks like twin brother and sister. Pale, red hair, green eyes. Older. Sixteen, maybe? Dunno. They grabbed them like, three hours before we got here and she was here two hours later. Don’t think anyone had done anything to them yet. Oh, and she had this big ass book and a notepad. Acronym on it. Minnesota, something, something, something with an I. She hugs me, they hug me, and they go.”

Maura is deathly pale.

“Jane, a moment?”

She jerks her head towards the door.

“Hit me, babe. What’s on your mind?”

“I don’t think we’re dealing with a revenge killer. Nor, as detective Gonzalez seems to thin, is this a power play by another, even more perverted cartel. Why would they hang out with the children, rather than leave, lower their own chances of getting caught?”

“Phew. Maybe guilt?”

“Why not call in a tip? Pass the kids off? No idea.”

Maura exhales a long, shuddering breath.

“Minnesota. Multiphasic. Personality. Inventory. Gold standard psychological test, research tool. Hundreds of questions. Takes _hours_ to administer. As in, hours of talking, like the girl mentioned? Can tell if you’re crazy, faking crazy, you name it. It’s actually part of how we know what to look for in guys like the Taco Truck guy.”

Jane leans against the opposite wall.

“She’s what, triage therapist, maybe? Sometimes these kids hurt themselves after. That's fully Gotham's brand. Grabbing little child soldiers out of the rain.”

Maura shakes her head.

“Metropolis, remember? Not Gotham. Hypothetically, let’s say there's another here on Earth. Female, clearly. He says he’s the last one. He’s male. The last male. They're a dying species. Evolution dictates they reproduce, try to recover. But we’ve never seen her and the journalist he so often defends is human. Presumably, they are not reproducing. If she’s…”

“Oh god,” Jane gulps. “He’s not an available mate, so she’s _harvesting_.”

Maura nods.

“The tests, though, the tests worry me. If it was simply for reproductive use why that? Why not test their genetics?”

“Maybe she took those too?”

“Jane, those tests aren’t going to tell you as much as genetics if you want the likelihood of a healthy offspring. They will tell you if someone you’re living with is stable as a partner. I tried to give it to my roommate, second year of med school because she was strange. She gave them tests that ask about them, as people and assess their health, meaning she may well plan to keep them and cohabitate for some time, if she’s bothering to learn so much. If it was simply to keep them from escaping, or being annoying…”

“Yeah,” Jane groans. “Traffickers have ways of handling that without damaging the bits.”

“So. We’ve got a baby-crazy alien who can insta-nuke a pervert with the literal blink of an eye and she has slaughtered nineteen of these fuckers so far. But this is the first time she took off with hostages. And she did psychologist speed dating with them first. Maybe. This is going to get so much worse, isn’t it?”

“I doubt we’ll see her again, Jane. I think she’s found what she was after. Who she was after. For a single female, limited usefulness to multiple males. One oven, so having more chefs won’t help. Taking the female is curious. Perhaps their reproductive anatomy is different!”

Jane swats Maura on the ass.

“Perhaps she’s just smart, babe. Hopefully, we never find out.”

* * *

**Kara Danvers | California | January 1st, 2008**

Light filters into the cave gradually, entering at a low angle. Hermit crabs skitter around, finding new places to hide. A sea lion hops to the entrance, looks inside, barks, and proceeds along.

As the light reaches the campsite, Kara's cells catch fire, one at time, and she yawns.

"Ah missed you," Stacy sighs.

"When I was sleeping?" Kara asks.

"Mmm. Yeah. No one ever treated me like I wasn't broken until you. Boys used me because they knew I'd fuck em and didn't want to work for it. Girls used me cause they think she's a sex junkie, safe to use her as a test. Teachers used me because they figured a skank like me wouldn't rat them out. Those men..."

She shudders and curls her freckled body tighter around Kara.

"They took me since it'd be less work to break me."

_I took her for the same trait. Except not to break her. I took her because she offered me something that was just mine and only mine and I felt like maybe I could help her in exchange. Maybe I'm not really much better than those guys._

Kara winds her hands idly in Stacy's damp red curls.

"You're not broken. Where I came from, what you...you'd be different, but we wouldn't think it was broken. Just really different. And I'll help you, always. You'll have more time to find what else you like to do and a safe place to eat and sleep. Harry and I can keep you from losing yourself in it."

"He's a boy. He can't help me. They always wanna stick it in you."

"Not all of them. Not Harry. That's why I interviewed you both."

"How long until I've had enough of your blood?" Stacy wonders, trailing her finger around Kara's navel. 

She's staring at the transfusion kit in the corner next to the crate of cookies Kara used to replenish herself.

Kara squeezes the springy flesh around Stacy's hips. Firmer than last night but that might be temperature, not metamorphosis.

"No clue. I'll keep you safe until then though."

"Ah know you will. Just...flying sounds like fun, s'all. Can we lie here a while? I'll want some but we've got time. Kinda squeezed out down there."

"Take your pills, please."

Stacy fumbles around on the milk-crate beside table and finds the stolen pills. Enough to repair Stacy's sleep schedule and let Kara figure out if it's a chemical depression or simply fucked-up life experiences. It's a tiny dose, for now, and Kara has supplies of others if these don't work. Stacy puts one on her tongue and _really_ makes a show of it before washing it down.

"Thanks, Stacy. They'll help with the sleep and the twitching, I promise. And I'll be here long as you need, pet. Long as you need."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kara is really dancing on the line here between hero and villain. I want her to seem iffy here. We'll see where she ends up.
> 
> Maura knows Enya sung the X-Files theme because Gillian Anderson is queer culture.
> 
> Stacy is something like a nymphomaniac but probably at the low end of the spectrum. Krypton, obviously, has a curious approach to certain mental issues, in terms of encapsulating them or leaning into them in a controlled manner to lessen their negative impact. Back home, sex addicts were probably treated like heroin addicts in Switzerland. Provide housing, food, and controlled, safe access to the need so that it stabilizes into a regular pattern and doesn't become life-destroying. Whether Kara took her and Harry to this little hideout on the opposite coast from her home out of pity, selfishness, or some larger notion, we will have to wait and see.


	7. As it Has Been Since History Began

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where there's a Justice League now, they have some questions about Kara, and Diana stops Clark from doing a stupid and he helps her with her least favorite thing. Reporters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **JUSTICE LEAGUE CHARTER:**  
>  Section II, Part I, amended by Diana Prince, approved 6-1
> 
> In battle, the leader must know their field, know their forces, and know their enemy. It bears almost no similarity to a duel with a madman. Soldiers before monarchs, for they have heard the screams and the smelled the blood without fleeing. Monarchs before heroes, for they were tutored. Chain of command in the field is as follows.  
> 
> 
>   * Diana
>   * Kate
>   * Mera
>   * Victor
>   * Clark
> 


**Diana "Prince" / _Diana Pangynos_** _(Diana of All Women)_ _|_ ** _Diana ek Hippolyta_ _schisménos Herakles_** (out of Hippolyta, torn from the seed of Hercules) **| Princess of Themiscrya | Metropolis | January 11th, 2008**

Diana pushes herself up from the great oval table of the Hall of Justice. On her right hand are Batman, Aquaman and Mera, Flash, Cyborg, Green Arrow. At the other end, Clark. On her left, the new inductees, who will earn their names and their suits at dawn tomorrow. Rachel Roth, Jefferson Pierce, Annissa Pierce, Kate Kane, June Moone and Zatanna.

"Your oath is affirmed. Make your patrols incognito for one last time and represent the best of your world and all others. You are soldiers and also, teachers and in a sense, priests. Go in peace."

Marble chairs scrape across marble floors. Batman stays behind to talk to Kate, his broken, stuttering Hebrew met by her fluid words in her resonant, blood-warming soprano. Diana _could,_ she knows and Kate probably _would_ but Maggie deserves better.

June slinks over to Rachel Roth, who puts her arm around her. June tests her Enchantress form, going back and forth and back and forth to ensure she is in control. Zatanna transforms her top hat to a straw hat and tucks her wand into her loose-fitting Hawaiian shirt.

"Come on, gals," Zatanna quips, clapping an arm around each. "Let's go see a man about a zombie. Get some sun, splash around in the Caribbean. It'll be fun."

Half-demoness and feral goddess alike turn to Zatanna, press their lips to hers, and she leads them out.

_Good. They'll work closer and fight fiercer that way._

Soon, it is her and Clark. He knows from the way she watches him not to leave.

"Walk with me, Clark."

She sweeps out of the room, picking her Dolce handbag and her Vera Wang strapless dress of the hangers. Artemis be praised that her sandals are 'sexy' enough because she suspects she would kill without hesitation if she is ever forced back into heels.

By the time he falls in behind her in the entry hallway, He's buttoning his shirt.

"You fitted them for your armor," Clark observes. To go over it."

"Clever man," she jokes. "Wait here."

She emerges from the ladies and she has a different power now, a different radiance. Armor of a different sort. She twirls slowly for Clark.

"Smart. Sword in the back with the ribbons. Just looks like it's decoration."

She nods.

"Is this walk-and-talk about Kara?" he asks.

"It is, yes."

"What will we do with her?"

"Nothing, Clark. I found he-"

"How?"

She crosses her arms and glares.

"Do you know why I _like_ you, Clark?"

"Not my looks, I know that."

She smiles.

"You don't interrupt. Usually. You pause a half-breath to be sure I'm done. You never start a sentence with 'well, actually…' and thus you are the only man since 1918 who I've never once wanted to kill where he stood. She is your kin and I understand your hot temper in this case. Forgiven. You may speak now."

"Ah. I, uh, yes. I'll watch for that," he replies, pink in the cheeks. "So, you found Kara?"

"She left clues, a trail, if you will. Purchases, in credit cards, in a pattern that stood out to me but would not to a straight man. Everyone else said 'the blonde always uses cash' like she had trained them. A deliberate bread crumb trail."

"What did she do to those poor children?" Clark asks, clearly afraid of the answer.

"She too is a child, Clark. A month older than the boy, three months younger than the girl. She took them as lovers, as I thought she might have. I bound them each with the lasso, questioned their intentions and their affections and left her with a warning."

"She killed nineteen people, Diana."

"She slew nineteen _monsters_ , Clark. That they lacked horns and a scorpion's tail is beside the point. Six children only live to heal their minds because her blood filled their veins. Thirty-nine walk free or are back in their parent's arms because of her. Could she have disabled the men? Yes. In the scenes I heard described, I doubt _I could have spared them,_ old friend. So I gave her mercy and a warning. She never takes another life unless I am on the battlefield with her and you or I order it."

Clark frowns.

"Which I would never do."

"Yes, nor would I ask you to. I feel Zod was enough to trouble your sleep for a lifetime. I trust her to come to me if she needs us. Until then, until she joins, she is free to hunt and strike as she pleases but not to kill."

"There should be trials."

Diana laughs.

"Clark, six of the governors of the states have pledged on camera to pardon her the instant her feet touch the jail room floor and they learn her name. The seventh, that pantsuited orge from Utah, has said nothing but her case for jurisdiction is the strongest. She's holding fire."

Clark sighs and he deflates, his shoulders losing their squareness and their challenge.

"I suppose. Wasn't looking forward to taking her down."

Diana's new grin shows her slightly longer canines.

"Nor was I looking forward to scooping my best friend's bones into a hole when I came to."

"You really think?"

"I know. Tested her. Told her to train with Artemis six weeks a year, two at a time. Her training is coarse and her movements without style but I believe it is deeper than mine. She told me they programmed it for nobles. Mental engrams. Close quarters combat and strategy. I approach her with a sword and she dodges, simple and efficient. Wasting no effort, pacing herself for a long fight. Same as you'd twitch your knee if I tapped it with a hammer."

She pushes the door open and they walk into the sea of reporters.

"Miss Prince! Miss Prince!" they bleat.

"Paw over each other and bark at me like untrained pups and I will treat you as such," she replies, loud enough for them all. "Leave you sitting without your supper. Speak among yourself, line up as the rational creatures the Gods made you and ask your questions."

"You first, young lady."

"What do you know about the…" the cub reporter pauses like she is bracing for a blow. "the bunny herder killer?"

"That I detest that name, firstly. These were children and victims. To infantilize and bestialize them is to imply their fates or their unripened, unready bodies were cute or adorable. To behave as their captors did. Only that she is now inactive, has donated for the children's treatment as I demanded and passed her files to me. The other slavers will fall, as do all slavers who face an Amazon armed and armored. As have all slavers we met in your written histories. When it comes to our shores, we strike it, follow it back and rip up both root and stem. My people have done this since Xerxes and Sparta. We heard prayers and we put swords in the Israelites hands and in the hands of the survivors of Sparcatus and Boudicaa's revolts. We will free those poor girls and boys and bring the monsters back in chains."

"Women of the world, my mother once knew chains no different. My bracers are a reminder. All girls wear them from their first bleeding when they begin to train. Fleshmongers and perverts, know this. Amazons walk Man's World now. I need not wait for you to soil my homeland. I can, and I will seek you out as I please."

Clark steps in front of Diana as the reporters keep shouting.

"As Miss Prince's publicist, I will be handling all other questions. She has a contract for the Louvre that she must complete. You, for Ms. Magazine."

Diana slides into the limo. Barbara Ann nods at her, closing the ancient Phoenician tome on her lap.

"Home?"

"Home, kitten. I must work on a bust of Hermes, repaint it after those stupid twats at the British Museum scraped it off in vanity. I'll be home to cook dinner and then we can let our hair down. Driver, Metropolis Airport please."


	8. Claws Out, Tooth to Tooth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> World meets Kara, Cat Grant calls her lifeline, and businesswomen set their own dress code.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stacy likes sex and she makes her craving work for her. Within some rules Kara and Harry set, they indulge her. With therapy, medication, and a lack of trauma related to a dead planet, she's probably the happiest of the bunch.
> 
> She's from Savannah, Georgia and Kara gets wet whenever she hears drawled innuendo how. Fried Green Tomatoes is banned.

### FOUR YEARS LATER

**Kara Danvers | National City | 30th and Harbor | Seaside Lofts | January 28th, 8:53am**

Kara uncaps the marker and circles another passage about Cat Grant. Stacy is at the table wearing heat resistant gloves and a belly-length shirt of protective cloth Kara made her. Nothing more, as is her wont in their home. Her soldering iron dances in the laptops guts and the fumes are sucked away. Her back is white but for her pale tan freckles. Like a leopard's spots or a sea of stars. Three thousand, four hundred and two from the nape of her neck to her feet. One thousand, two hundred and nine from her forehead to her toes. Her curls are rust dark and damp and tied with three hairbands. The muscles in her back are drawn in.

"Ah feel you watching me, darlin'. Ah'm apt to ruin the merchandise and leave a puddle on this chair."

"Sorry."

"Never be sorry. Will need a hit from one of y'all before too long. Harry's flexing and whatnot for his YouTube channel and you know how those spin cycle types get if they're interrupted. Starting to get that little shiver."

"Whatever you need, my dear but I have to leave in an hour."

Kara looks up at the west wall. It feels unreal, seeing her diploma from Duke, Stacy's from the community college and her businesses' tax certificate there. Harry scotch-taped Stacy's current grades for her studies towards her Bachelor's in Business Administration to the refrigerator yesterday. Back above a 3.8, she proudly reported. All the orgasms she likes.

"Hah!" Stacy calls out.

"Gotcha, ya little shit. The power supply wires on these break more than I can believe. Gonna stretch you and then pour some of this on you. Better?"

She waves the last of the fumes away with her hand, pushes the magnifying glass aside and grabs her screwdriver. Six whirs of compressed air later, the Macbook is whole again. She flips it over and pushes the button.

"It's aliiiiiiiive!" She hollers.

"Every time, Stace?" 

"Every time. Hand me that box, would you?"

"Would you..."

She turns, green eyes hooded and her tongue traces her lip.

"Please, Worship. The box?"

Kara grabs the box, flicks her heat vision along the heat-sealing glue at the bottom and holds it open for Stacy.

"Thank ya, darlin'. Wait. Hang on."

She grabs the blacklight and opens the lid.

"Oh," she grimaces. "Jesus Christ's whiskers! I didn't have that much-dried spooge on me New Years' morning, despite my best efforts. I checked it earlier. Must have been a layer _under_ the first layer. Have to wipe it again." 

"Wear gloves, honey. Use the ultrasonic and the blue light, too."

"No shit."

Kara sets the box on the table. It reads _Red's Refurbished: Bare Naked Prices, Classy Quality!_ and has Stacy's face stamped on the shipping label wearing a cowboy hat, a wink and a jokey grin. At the time, it was nothing else but cropped, the customers don't know that and what they don't know won't hurt them.v It's corny but it hit a nerve in the market. Stacy hauls in pallets of "garbage" returned to Amazon and Best Buy who would rather not sort it, sorts it, fixes it, sells it. Her meticulous touch on cleaning them, a ferocity instilled by a Scotch Irish giant of a grandmother Kara met last Christmas, litters her five-star reviews.

Only person who hasn't met them is Eliza. Alex insisted on holding that back.

"Shit," Kara grumbles when she hears her phone buzz. "Probably moving my appointment up. Sorry, dear."

"Figure something out. Always do. Maybe get the vibrator and dust it so it ain't so lonely. Kiss, please."

Stacy tilts her head back and Kara crouches down. She cups Stacy's jaw and closes in. When their lips meet, there's a hum and a gasp, Kara's pretty sure the latter is hers and Stacy brings her hands to her breasts. 

"Tap please. Quick one."

Kara complies, two swift, halfhearted smacks to the springy flesh marbled with the ghosts of pink veins. She delivers a tap to each nipple and Stacy shivers.

"You'll be okay?"

"Yeah," Stacy gasps. "If it's the usual delivery guy, I can blow him or something...after that, he always gives me what for, whatever I want, however hard I want.":

Kara pinches her cheeks.

"Can't imagine why... Naughty little creature, you. I'll call after my interview."

"Go, you," Stacy teases, pushing Kara back.

Kara straightens herself out and tries hard not to look at Stacy sprawled, naked on the couch and soft and draped over cushions like melted wax. She adjusts her cardigan and is halfway to the door when the bell rings.

"I'll get it!" Stacy blurts out, scrambling to her feet. She blazes past Kara, all smiles and jiggles and raw energy. She grabs a fistful of condoms from the bowl by the door.

"Stace, wait it's no-"

Stacy throws the door open. A shell-shocked looking woman in a brown shirt and pants is standing there, blinking.

"Not the usual guy," Kara sighs.

"Uh, hi," the driver mumbles. "Pallet in the old vault downstairs. Anastasia MacAllister?"

"S'me," Stacy sighs, stretching to the left to pop a joint and also to look as delicious as possible. 

"Sign please."

"There you go. You're not Jordan," Stacy says, wagging a finger accusingly. "Shit. I was looking forward to some deepthroat and cowgirl."

The parts of the driver that aren't company-uniform brown are now tomato red.

"No, ma'am. He's on vacation. New girlfriend, I think. I'm doing half days and late shift, and I said I'd fill in."

"'Scuse me," Kara mutters, trying to slide past Stacy and only getting a squeze on the ass for her troubles.

"New girlfriend. That's a shame. What about you?"

"Uh, I'm not sure I should," the driver gulps, "tell you that."

"Ever been with a girl?"

She shakes her baseball-capped head at Stacy.

"Wanna?"

She nods, slowly, dazedly.

"Ah'll be here whenever you get off with your halfsies, then. Hey! Maybe Jordan will switch routes, huh? Gonna have to wear gloves, until we can get ya tested. We'll have fun."

"Good," the driver manages. "That's...good, yeah."

Kara hits the stairs with a smile.

"That woman is like the back hole of sex," she mutters as she throws her shoulder into the back door. "No escape once you see her." 

She looks around and takes off.

* * *

**Cat Grant | National City | Grant and Main | CatCo Tower | January 28th, 10:13am**

"Where's my 10:15?" Cat bellows.

A plainly-dressed blonde sprints into sight. She's tall but gives off absolutely no vibe of anything else. Like she was a black hole, a gap in both style and personality. She holds out her hand.

"Kara Danvers, ma'am."

"I see your hand. Sit. Who are you and why should I care?"

"I'm the best thing that ever happened to you. Three days, I'll prove it."

"Why on Earth should I do that?"

"Because I was top of my class, sorority president and three-time award-winning student journalist and more importantly, I've spent the last month scouring the public record to see what extra value I can offer you. You don't like me, fire me. Three days pay is what, $350 at California minimum? Small bet for a woman such as yourself. Here, I compiled a file for you."

She hands it over.

"Disturbing that you found this," Cat grumbles.

She fips a page.

"Hmm. This is something to keep an eye on but I knew that already."

She flips again.

"No, whatever that its, no. The idea, yes. On the basis of your shirt alone, no."

Kara offers her hand.

"Challenge accepted?"

Cat shakes it.

"Challenge accepted. Oh, and Kiera?"

"Kara, but yes?"

"Don't come back until Thursday, Kiera. You are on unapproved leave until then, which I will use to start your vacation balance in the red. You have _one day_ here on-site to prove yourself. I don't like ultimatums."

Kara nods, looking a bit pale but her head held high.

"Thursday, bright and early, ma'am."

Cat turns her computer back on and pulls up the security feed, scrolling back to the moment she refused to shake Kara's hand. She was wary, held back, but wasn't frightened. If this is the girl Lois tried to pawn her off to, she has a bone to pick with Lois Lane.

* * *

**It's a baby girl!**   
  


From: cats.got.claws@flame.com

Subject: I hate you

To: pr.nightmare@flame.com

Bitch,

Is this that one you were blathering on about? Explain. It's like someone tried to dress up a rice cracker and failed!

I gave her one day and I doubt I can stomach her until lunch!

Your friend,

Kitty

From: pr.nightmare@flame.com

Subject: I hate you

To: cats.got.claws@flame.com

Aww, she's so cute in that!

Kitty, you're a smart woman so I'm going to say this exactly once. She's like family and I want her to be happy. She's sexy, I know her well enough to say she's not a prude an if you don't get some this decade, I don't think print media will survive and I need it for my booze money. If she's anything like mine, she can take the top off your brain with a look. Don't ask what they can do with their tongues...

See attached for the real Kara. She's on the left. The one on the right is the bitchiest intern I ever me and look at her try to slink away! That girl got by on her mean face and her nice tits until Kara put her in her place. Shannon or something. She tried to backstab Kara during career day -- cheating on a test, I think -- and she swatted her down so hard the poor thing shivered when Kara walked by to gloat. I can find the other name if you want a boxed set.

Your friend,

Bitch

* * *

Cat has a problem. Her ex-husbands have been emotionally abusive, uncaring, and distant and she doesn't have a home life beyond cooking for Carter once a week. She's alone, he misses human contact besides his hand-picked nannies and his handpicked teachers. Her 29th birthday party wasn't any easier than all the previous 29's.-

Escorts were the most logical choice but that involves leaving the office which she doesn't have time for and could bring criminal charges. Unacceptable.

Logically, an office tryst provides the fewest logistic and lifestyle barriers.

It's breach of contract. It can (will, probably) cost her her job. She can't deny the way the brunette is nailed on the spot, body tilted away, nervous and head titled in, curious. She wants to be the brunette and wonder what the alpha bitch will do when she rolls over and she wants to be the subject of Kara's semi-worshipful gaze when she held out her hand. 

She's Cat fucking Grant. She contains multitudes. She can be this girls' whore and this girl can treat her like a goddess for the honor of her presence. She's the Queen of All Media, she can do both.

This has to be from the start, so no one is shocked and so that it's never why Kara was promoted or why she stays late or eats lunch with Cat. Her normal day-to-day has to plausibly resemble being Cat's on-demand fuck. Cat flips through the folder for Kara's email and shoots an appointment off, lying her ass off about the office dress code.

If her fist-first approach to being interviewed for an entry-level job is any indicator, the girl might want to lead and that's one thing off Cat's plate. One less decision.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ignore the panther, it's fake news. That was taken at the Daily Planet's "Reporter for a Day" job fair. 
> 
> Real reason: I need my own image hosting before I can crop.


	9. Making a Splash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Cat Grant always gets what she wants, eventually, exponential growth is a slap in the face, this wasn't in the employee handbook, or Grey's Anatomy, it's embarrassing as fuck and Kara decides it's time for Krypton to rise anew, stronger than ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this is silly. I warned you, I used bits from Larry Niven's "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" for this, just flipped it for a female. The show has edged around it, with Lois wanting to be on Argo 'before the baby kicked' but we're going all the way down that rabbit hole, my lovelies.
> 
> Keep in mind that conservatively, Supergirl's muscles are millions of times stronger than a human. More, actually, but million is a starting point and a number one can get one's head around. Smooth muscles, the ones that line blood vessels, pump blood, pump tears, pump anything that moves through a tube in the body, would probably be similar. In fact, in females, many of the toughest, most powerful muscles are in the reproductive system.

**Cat Grant  
  
**Cat's first day of Operation Get Some is hell. 

First off, Kara walks in like she owns the place in a top and skirt that leaves her arms and her shoulders bare and Cat tries, she _tries_ to snap and belittle and bring Kara to heel but when she cuts too deep, those arms folded across Kara's chest look like artfully carved granite and Cat remembers being 20 but she's positive her breasts didn't go that high no matter what and Kara's neck is making Cat think vampire-type things and when Cat finally yells for Kara, her trademark, nothing. Kara pauses and turns her head to face the fucking copywriter she was talking to, cocks her hip and says something and the poor thing giggles. 

She stills, so she can hear Cat but she doesn't acknowledge. She doesn't bother to turn all the way to face Cat. Then she gets her the fucking latte, nails the deliberately obtuse order at Noonan's and there's a smiley face in sharpie, something which belonged to the girl from the interview, not this giantess. She's Cats assistant and she will take orders but she will not take crap or come when called apparently.

Kara yawns at lunch, long and feline, complete with open mouth and bared, perfect teeth and a blink-and-you miss it flicker curled tongue. Her top and skirt pull apart and _sweet god, a glimpse of those abs!_ and Kara wiggles her fingers cutely once she's fully extended. Then she tugs her dress back and straightens out and acts like she wasn't chasing a ball of yarn ten seconds before.

Katie from Art manages to delete the cover she was working on and only the fact that Cat had it pulled up in her Dropbox saves the next issue from gay panic. 

Kara sighs and smiles and gives her IT guy desk neighbor, Winn, her lunch order as if of course that's his job and he acts like it's his _religion._ Kara eats a terrifying amount of Chinese food while everything with ovaries in the office stares at her murderously, pecks Winn on the cheek and he grins dopily and she heads into Cat's office for her 12:30 orientation.

Two hours plus Kara's lunch break.

She's not only handed Cat ammunition to wedge two of her more vile board members out and cleaned a workflow in advertising that was adding 'nine point eight minutes man hours per ad' she told Cat, but she's walking into Cat's office. Stalking. Like a lioness. Even, quiet footsteps, every motion smooth. Narrow hips swaying, her broad shoulders up big and proud with an opened General Tso's in hand and her other is reaching up to pull her hair out of that big, smooth coil of brads that looks like a cockatiel's crest and _fuck_ it goes down to Kara's ass now and it's apparently backlighted or something because Cat's phone screen is dimmer than that waterfall of gold.

"You may have lunch now, Miss Grant."

She plunks the greasy, crunchy mess down and Cat sees the rose pink lip gloss on the chopsticks. Kara knows. She knows Cat will eat that.

"Oh, may I?" Cat sneers.

"Yes," Kara sighs. "I want you to keep your strength up, dear."

The position is harsh but the dear seems real and her blue eyes lost their razors edge the had when she was being yelled at.

"You must be intriguing to me, dear even. Because I have your offer, in writing and I haven't told anybody. Probably, nine million, ballpark, lawsuit wise? I am in control right now."

Kara scoots in.

"Get the notepad, left drawer, with my orientation packet. Do it."

"Why?"

"You're reading me the passwords I need to have delegated access to your email," Kara whispers, bending down. 

Kara's breath is on Cat's temple now and these flashbacks to Olivia at Radcliff, too many shots, and bemoaning their college lesbian experimenting are approaching panic attack levels of intensity. Cat snagged a volleyball player and a gymnast who _wished_ they had Kara's tone and her height. They came to her room together, filling the space so much it was like all the air was gone. The gymnast had this weird contraption called a 'strapon' that twenty-year-old Cat hadn't heard of before but when she had to call in sick to class, she knew exactly what that was.

Kara hovers, close.

"Start reading."

She shuffles around so it looks like Cat's just sharing confidential information.

"Look at where my leg is."

Cat gulps. Kara's wound her shin in between Cat's legs and it's there and she has it tensed up and if Cat just lifts her skirt, she can grind. Those muscles are probably harder than her glass butt plug back home.

"I accept your offer, Cat. Eagerly. Now, you're a smart woman, you know what to do. Rub."

Cat does.

"Good," Kara says, crisply, and between the friction and the steel in the tone Cat fucking _hiccups_ for some stupid reason. 

"Eat your lunch, Miss Grant. I'll read these to myself."

So Cat finds herself trying to rub off on Kara's bare, sinewy, masterfully shaven leg and cocoa butter fills her lungs and she can _not_ drop greasy sauced chicken nuggets on herself. It's humiliating and she's doing all the work but she's getting off and she _is_ hungry and if Kara flips two pages further she'll have the keys to the digital kingdom.

'Stop," Kara commands when the roll of Cat's hips speeds up.

"You've had enough."

Kara pulls her leg back.

"You're...hired," Cat grits out. " _Please_."

"I know, but you don't have the whole arrangement yet. Tomorrow. I promise. Tomorrow's Friday and I have some ideas and we can just spend the weekend here."

"Fuck you."

"You just tried to," Kara says with a grin.

"Something you should know, Cat. I do two things, dine and dash or make someone _mine_ so if you ever want this again, I'm part of your life. Carter seems like a lovely kid. I'm not saying I have to have pick-up rights at his school but I am saying he's coming over to my place for dinner with you and I am coaching his softball team and I'm saying that someday, you're going to be explaining to Carter that his other mommy will spend time with him whenever he wants."

Cat swallows. Kara beelined through Cat's physical need into her fucking daydreams about having a partner and a family again and she took everything except Carter's actual safety away from her.

"You'll get some extra perks, as well. Sexual and revenge-related both. Agreed?"

"Agreed," Cat grunts, chasing a slick leg she can no longer reach.

"How are you with pressure, Cat?"

"I don't under-"

Cat's sentence ends in a yelp. 

"Is her majesty all right?" Winn asks. "Strangely, I kinda like her."

"She's fine, Winn. Tell him your fine. Tell him I pointed out that one of your passwords had a sex joke in it."

"I," Cat gulps. "Kara realized one of my passwords could be ... taken as inappropriate and it startled me."

Kara has her heel off and one foot is under Cat's molten, quivering, starved core, with Cat's juices running down the skin. The ball of the other foot is positioned against Cat's mound. She could practically crush Cat's clit this way and it might well be worth it.

"How...are you...with pressure?" Kara demands.

"Not too hard," Cat pleads.

Kara pushes down slow and shimmies the ball of her foot -- clean, Cat hopes -- and side to side.

"Can you come for me, baby? Please?" Kara coos.

Cat's back arches and she explodes. She doesn't leak, her juices _splash_ against Kara's foot, the chair, and her once-expensive dress. She didn't know her body was capable of that three seconds ago. Kara wipes her own leg off on a handkerchief because of course, somehow, impossibly, that dress has pockets.

"Good girl. I'll see you at five, okay darling?"

Cat nods and collapses like an empty gove.

"Cat," Kara says from halfway too the door, looking over her shoulder. The softness is back now and the look of longing and admiration from her interview. "I take care of my pets. Always. I tend to be a sort of U-Haul dominatrix, I suppose. Feelings come quickly to me. I'll be good to you. If this isn't the game you want, tell me. We'll do something else."

Kara sways away and her hair swishes, unleashed upon the human race.

Cat smiles and nods and Kara grins like a firework show and Lois Lane deserves four more Pulitzers for finding this girl.

Cat hears crinkling. The actual contract part of Cat's offer was apparently signed, in red sharpie, using her collarbone as a clipboard and cat never noticed. In her mirror, the red ink reading 'Kara Z.E. Danvers' is normally oriented and Cat's been stamped now and she just shrugs and tightens her jacket over the mark.

Cat opens her email. Lane found the other girl. Siobahn Smythe, Irish-American, Cornell, vocal music minor, the type of grades you can't get by fucking professors but you can do better than if you actually apply yourself. Working at a tiny radio station in Fresno that CatCo is about to buy and close. Hosting bluegrass music on some no-doubt hideous show called Morning Banshees. She needs backup. She needs another woman for Kara to tower over. If this goes on, one assistant, however superhuman, isn't going to be able to pick up all the threads cat drops and keep this place going. 

She writes up an offer, two-year contract, sneaky NDA clause and a payout in case Siobhan doesn't bite with Kara. Seventy-five percent of Kara's now obscene salary and Cat gives her important, but _less_ important duties -- always stack the deck, never play fair -- puts some blather about looking forward to it. 

She orders the box set. 

Cat's lioness treated her so well and more than deserves a chew-toy and maybe it'll Siobahn teach this bitch that there's other ways to be.

**Harry Thompson**

Donna the UPS girl holds Stacy's head down on his prick and her throat trembles around him and it's amazing. Stacy has done this before, who knows how often. She wanted to learn and Kara and he split the work Kara made a point of whining and being an ass because 'the strapon has feelings too' and it cracked them all up. Now it's being done _to_ Stacy with him as a prop and it's kind of spooky how much Stacy likes it. Donna's work shirt is unbuttoned and open and her bra and shorts are long gone. Umbrella basket, he thinks. Possibly the dish rack. It was a hurry.

Harry shifts back and forth on the couch, nervously, because this is all new behavior.

It's also usually slow torture, not this intense spearing, and it's his job to just be here and rub her shoulders and sometimes even read her trashy crime novels to her until Stacy has gotten whatever emotional pick-me-up she needs. She usually curls up with him after, rarely asks for anything in return.

"I had to _beg_ to get my route shifted," She hisses. "You hear me?"

Stacy gasps and shivers and taps his thighs and then Donna pulls her up so fast her hair flips back and gives her a two-fingered slap on the cheek.

"Your turn. Beg."

"I want," Stacy gulps. "I want you to fuck him, using me. If I'm hurting, I'll tell you. Otherwise, do it."

Donna apparently isn't actually an asshole. She grins and kisses Stacy's messy, spit-slicked cheek.

"God, I could fall in love with you, you crazy horny weirdo."

Donna fists her latex-gloved hands in Stacy's sweaty mane and guides her back down, slowly, like she knows that if she slows Stacy, it'll take longer.

"That's it, white girl," She growls.

Until her hat came off, they didn't realize but Donna was biracial. She has incredible, tightly coiled reddish hair and ghostly blue eyes, her mommas, she said. Spanish.

"Get back down on that."

Harry feels it, starting in his thighs and he tickles Stacy's ear, the signal they have.

"You like cum, don't you, white girl?

Stacy nods.

His hands grip the armchair and he thinks he hears something, like a cracking sound. Stacy's tongue does that magical little flutter and he spills and she moans and then sputters, gagging, tapping out. Donna pulls her back, looking apologetic. The last spurt catches Donna on the temple and she crumples.

"The hell?" Stacy mutters. "Donna?" 

She snaps her fingers.

"Donna?"

"Get a flashlight, yeah?"

"On it."

Stacy squats by Donna and peels back her eyelids.

"She's got a concussion."

"How?"

"Kara's blood, I guess. We _were_ trying to turn into Kryptonians, stupid. And, I'm sure that means _everything_ happens faster and harder."

"That was supposed to be six more months!" Harry sputters. "We were gonna adjust, and learn how not to hurt people and...fuck!"

"Logarithmic," Stacy realizes, jumping to her feet. 

She looks utterly crazy, makeup messy and spit dripping on her chin and her hands wringing her hair. He wants to marry her.

"Logarithmic scale. It's steady changes and then at some point, it just shoots up," she mumbles, looking at donna. "Something crosses a line, like say, our bone marrow is replaced and _we're_ making the blood and then pow! The changes just happen faster. Like, you totally crushed the aluminum tubing of the chair, too."

He looks back.

"Huh."

"We need to help her."

Stacy bounces on her feet.

"We take her to a hospital, they're going to ask why there's jizz mixed into the bruise."

"Yeah, that'll be awkward. I feel awful, Stace."

"Big softie. But yeah, me too."

Stacy pinches her nose.

"Hand me my phone. Kara might or might not kill me for this."

Stacy pulls up her contacts.

_"Hi, Alex!"_

_"Do I wanna fucking know?"_

_"Probably not, but we need help."_

_"I've got a flight to Geneva in two hours, kid. Talk fast."_

=====

Alex shows up at their door, motorcycle jacket that's lived in like it's her skin and rocking a haircut that basically removes the need for anyone around her to have gaydar.

"Hi, Harry!"

"Afternoon, Alex, thanks for helping."

"Hi, Alex!" Stacy calls from around the corner.

She comes around.

"Sorry to have to ask this."

"Oh, good, it's wearing pants," Alex exhales. "Give it a biscuit, please."

Stacey pouts. Alex shrugs. Then they both laugh. Alex hugs her.

"All right. So what was this again?"

Stacy and Harry look at each other.

"Ejaculation related concussion."

"With the UPS girl."

Stacy nods.

"Because your usual UPS guy is on honeymoon or something."

"Kinda."

"So of course you banged the new one. To the point where she changed her driving route for you."

"Ah mean, she wanted to," Stacy shrugs. "and ah think she'd like to make it a thing, y'know? Maybe even do non-sex stuff. Seemed lonely."

Alex lifts her head out of her hands.

"Get a whiskey, neat. No, screw that. Three. I can't practice drunk but I am not _thinking about this_ sober."

"On it," Stacy replies.

Alex looks up at Harry.

"Harry. Did this happen how I _think_ it happened? Are those needles and tubes my sister has what I think they are?"

"Yes, transfusions...and a moment of panic between me and Stace. Poor aim."

"So Kara is..."

"Turning us Kryptonian. Apparently, we hit some point and the process accelerated exponentially."

Alex's mouth is a tight line. She watches a bird out the window for a minute.

"The MMPI she gave you when she rescued you. She needed to know you could be trusted with the power. You're shy and Stacy is easily calmed and not really ambitious for murder or ruling the world. As for the spike, it might work like the experimental bone marrow treatments against HIV. Your blood-making cells were now really _hers_. Rather than transfusions, constant replacement. Still weird. Biocompatible species, ask my nieces but...offspring and adult transformation are two totally different things. Kara's blood is just lousy with stem cells, I suppose. I'll need to check you both. Soon."

Harry covers his T-Shirt clad stomach with his arms. Alex makes him nervous. A doctor for the city health department, his ass. She's a fighter, probably a killer too.

"Whatever you need."

"Do you know why?" Alex murmurs. "She's had safe, non-murder sex with humans."

"She wants a family, Ally. Not for a while, of course. A big one. Like, start recovering her people big."

Alex's hazel eyes widen.

"She needs humans, varied samples, more starting points for the DNA."

"Something like that, yeah."

Alex huffs.

"Huh. My sister is trying to outbreed the human race. Figures she'd get me back for that one Thanksgiving. Where's the patient?"

=====

Donna is sitting at the kitchen table, Stacy's plush body squeezed against her.

"Mwah! Mwah! Mwah!" Stacy jokes, kissing the uninjured side of the head. "You worried me so bad, sexy."

She lifts the icepack off the bruise.

"That...really happened?"

"Yup."

"Because you're aliens. Kinda. Some shit like that True Blood show."

"I guess, yeah," Alex decides. "Superhuman blood."

"Because that throw me down and rip me apart blonde from earlier is the one who saved Superman, back when? Her sister and your partner, both of you?"

"His cousin. Older cousin," Alex adds. "a bit of a mix up with her flight path. He got here 24 years earlier but as a baby. She was 13 when she left. When it all was destroyed."

"And because of that, you practically blew my brains out with cum."

"Sorry?" Harry attempts.

"God," Donna says, leaning back. "The only bad part of this story is I can't tell it to anyone. I know the secret now, though, right? I'm like, stuck?"

Alex shakes her head.

"The government tracks how many people know but unless you do something that endangers people, no. Free to do whatever."

Donna worries her lip with her teeth.

"Gonna need some time. Not the moving in type but superbooty calls, that's a maybe. God, if that's her in business clothes, what does she look like naked?"

"Oh, sweetie," Stacy teases, "the mind boggles."

"What's the prognosis doc?"

"Don't seem to be any damage. Sleep here tonight so they can observe you. LET HER FUCKING SLEEP, STACY. Two orgasms, self-administered, and three aspirin before bed, avoid operating heavy machinery and penises, reclining cunnilingus only until your next check-up with me."

All three of them gawk at her.

"What? Gay sister can't tease you? That's actually good advice, you heathens."

Alex looks at her watch.

"Fuck. I can't make the Delta 118 now. Looks like..."

She fiddles with her phone.

"Flight 237 has a seat. Ooh, window seat even. I gotta go."

"Fly safe!" Stacy calls out.

Alex gets back into her jacket.

"Don't fuck yourself bloody!"

=====

Not long after Alex leaves, Kara arrives. She looks around the dining room table and folds her arms.

"All right," she laughs. "Clearly something went tits up. First day went great and I got the job, so you adorable fuckups better explain what went wrong."

**Stacy MacAllister**

**Stacy MacAllister**

Kara's curled up tight on her lap, nuzzling her cheek against her belly. Her messy, shampoo-smelling hair was laid up across Stacy's torso and over the back of the couch. It's been all over TV all night. It's looped five times on CatCo so far.

 _Hope and Help - The Flight 237 Miracle,_ the chyron reads. Rosie Williamson, CatCo's lead, was shaken out of bed and marched into the studio and she looks the part. She soldiers on. She talks about the mind-boggling challenge of it, how the plane had to tip just so to miss the minivan on the bridge. How grabbing the fuselage in the wrong place would've torn it in half. How the aliens who tried to interfere were pushed back and how the Air Force came in and distracted them so Kara could work getting their assess handed to them for daring to interfere. How Kara had to stop helping the plane to save an ejected pilot then hurry back and grab it.

Except nobody knows shit about what really happened and it breaks Stacy's heart.

The most powerful, most loving woman in the world is here in her lap, sniffling because her sister didn't return a voicemail and the TV people can't even focus on what she's like in real life, only on how she dodged heat vision and thrown girders. What's she like? Where's she work? Favorite song? Favorite ice cream? Weirdest period craving? 

"Who!" Stacy hisses at the muted TV, "Not _how_ , _who_!"

"M'n love," Kara yawns. "Love, love, love."

"Ah know, dahling. Ah know."

"Don't think I can sleep," Kara sighs. "Hold me."

"Just lie back, Kara. Lie on back."

Stacy sings the song her dad used to sing to her.

"Go to sleep you weary hobo...let the towns drift slowly by,"

Harry walks over.

"Can't you hear the steel rails hummin'? That's a hobo's lullaby."

Kara doesn't sleep, but Stacy hopes she feels better.

=====

**Cat Grant**

  
"Listen up, everybody!" Cat hollers. Kara's standing behind her on the right, one pace away, like a knight guards a queen and Cat's fairly sure it's the only reason she hasn't puked in panic. This is a narrow fucking window to pull off a media coup that's only happened once in human history. Save her empire while not getting scooped by the woman secretly her best friend and lose it all.

She hits her remote and all the TVs behind her switch to one two-second clip. A soaked woman in a crummy t-shirt and ratty jeans, looking at someone in the plane and then blasting off with a crack and a sonic boom.

"This. This is us now. This girl is going to be everything for our paper. The Daily Planet Group now owns 40% of local TV stations, eighteen local papers and it's because they have a hero. They have an _epic._ The Iliad, the Odyssey, Star Wars. They don't just do obits and classifieds, they bring Superman to the world and get filthy rich doing it."

"Whatever your editor told you to do yesterday?"

Cat inhales. She's casting the dice.

"Fuck that. Investigative, find her. Opinions, I want people on these streets, government officials, insurance agents, scare up some of the metahumans too. That Frost lady in Hawaii maybe, or the goofy kid..."

"Flash," Kara fills in.

"Him. Charismatic. He sells papers. Obits, get an opinion from Batman. Counterpoint from Dracula or something."

The laughter settles over the crowd -- her army -- and she feels a bit better.

"Olsen," Cat begins, spinning on her heel. "Pictures. You photographed the last one, you photograph this one or you're on a plane to Metropolis. _Capiche?_ "

"Fashion, for fuck's sake, find a way to dress this girl before I interview her. Nia, you're creative. You're on point."

"On it, boss."

"What are the vitals, here? The airport says radar never showed her leaving town, so she's here, somewhere."

"Five nine?" Tolson suggests. "Maybe thirty? Hundred eighty? Brown hair."

Kara coughs behind Cat and fidgets uncomfortably.

_Hmm._

"Kara," James asks. "Can you get the length of a 747's wing for me?"

"Yeah, sure. Aviation.com don't fail me now..."

"What about the little thing at the tip? How tall is that?"

"On it. Here we go. Wingpsan 224, fuselage 41..." Kara clucks her tongue. "That wing is 91 feet long. Spoiler at the tip, 47 inches."

"Bob, could you step away from the window," James asks.

"Uh, sure," the sports guy mutters.

Olsen crouches down. Cat, genuinely intrigued, watches him close.

"Give or take, LordTech tower is 230 feet away. That plant's a few inches shorter than the wingtip. Now, I'm sitting. iPhone has a 2x, maybe 4x zoom but it's crap and that's a halfway decent shot. So it's not zoomed. 1:1. If she's say, twelve feet back from the window..." 

He steps back four big steps.

"Jenny, move that potted plant a bit, please."

"Excuse me!" Cat snaps, "Rearrange my office, and you die."

James holds up his Nikon with that lens the size of a whale dick and just about as unpleasantly shaped.

"She's six-two, at least."

Kara makes a 'hmph' sound behind Cat.

_Curiouser and curiouser..._

"Oh," Kara butts in. "She's a natural blond, obviously."

A newsroom of old men and sharklike women and senior journalists that costs 17 million in salary a year just gawks at Cat's assistant on her second day.

"What?" she snaps. She points at the lowest screen. "Eyebrows! Practically impossible to dye, and there are streaks of yellow in her hair, pretty random. Doesn't look like highlights. And she did just fly through four explosions, a missile, and get tackled into a coal barge a lunatic Superman wannabe. Girl's blonde. Just really needs a shower."

Snapper Carr, of all people, starts clapping.

"You got guts, Ponytail. Shit for sources but you've got instinct and guts. Sources, you can always find before the deadline."

Cat finds herself stepping between Snapper and Kara.

"Mine."

"Men, leave."

They file out quickly.

"Girl," Cat snaps. "Stay."

Kara makes a delicious little shiver.

"Go, close the door, draw the shades. Come back."

Kara sits primly on the couch while Cat paces.

"That's you?"

"What?"

"Kara, how often do you think bystanders protest that someone _is_ a natural blonde, especially a six-plus knockout, rather than gossiping that she's not?"

"Fifty percent of the time."

Cat laughs.

"Only an alien will get that far off. Is that you?"

"I...if I trust you with this, you have to understand, it's like Carter's password at school. Innocents could, probably will, die if this gets out."

"Agreed. Is that you, Kara?"

"Yes," she sniffs. "I'm scared, Cat. My sister was on that plane."

"Oh," Cat murmurs. She opens her arms.

"She was on it and I only went up there for Alex and...and...and now she won't call me back! All I know is she's not at the hospital!"

Cat pulls Kara in and this unbreakable creature sobs into her blouse. Something inside her breaks. It unsticks. Wheels and gears spin free. Feelings left cold and congealed rise to a boil. The part of her that loves helping Carter, loves helping people, loves writing romance advice columns, collides full-on with the sexual Cat and the lonely Cat and it's all right here and she can have it if she's just less of a bitter, jaded old hag. If she pushes people away from her less.

"Too soon to say I love you?" Cat asks.

"I actually said it while trying to ask a girl out once," Kara sniffs. "in my defense, I was four days into this whole Earth thing and I said it in Kryptonian, so."

Cat laughs. Kara laughs.

Her lioness stops pacing and curls into Cat.

"Thank you, _zhutov vaena._ Thank you."

A few people outside, including Winn, have clued in on it and are watching. Fuck 'em. If someone asks what Kara's doing here, Soaking Cat's boobs with her tears, Cat's getting down on her knees with the nearest ring-shaped object and showing them.


	10. Morning(s) After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex is done a startle, Cat is made an indecent proposal and something wicked, this way comes, and comes, and comes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mean, look at that _face_ Sam makes.

****

**Alex Danvers**

Alex has had bad mornings. Hungover mornings. As those go, today is a five of of ten.

One night stands? Whoever she was, fifteen of ten.

She deserved a drink. She nearly died, she had to lie on a polygraph about not knowing Kara, and then try and find a hotel room in a city of three million losing its collective shit over a terrorist attack.

A leggy, long-fingered brunette in an otherwise remarkable dive bar, wearing clothes Alex only reads about in magazines and clacking a dollar store, mass-produced sucker against her teeth. Thoughtfully, almost. Alex shouldn't have really been surprised she tasted like candy, or that she used every _inch_ of height to maneuver Alex against the alley wall.

She lifts the blankets and tries to reconstruct. Dark purple marks up one side of her ribs and down the other. That was when she landed on the bed, was flipped over, and taken apart with teeth and suction and so-sweet bruises she's going to get piles of crap for in sparring. Catspaw trail of lipstick and hickeys from neck to thigh...that's where the night gets fuzzy. There was something with a tongue as powerful, long and quick as her playmate and a growl carried from teeth to lips to clit and that's when whisky got the better of Alex. Again.

It's daytime but the curtains are drawn and Alex can easily shimmy away into the shadow.

The sounds of little boys playing make-believe outside startle Alex. Is this someone's _home_? Did the bring her home where their _kids are_? _Fuck_. Alex reaches up and tries to rub her sour-tasting mouth and comes away with a hand almost red with lipstick. 

Right. Kissing. Kissing like she was the cavewoman to discover it and breathing and licking and pulling on Alex's lips with her teeth.

Makeout. Up in the air if that's a one night stand thing.

Something hits her around the midsection.

"Hi!"

Alex clamps the sheets down around her with all her might and peeks down

It's a little girl, maybe eight.

"Hi."

"Mom's making pancakes, c'mon!"

"Ruby!" the brunette calls out. "Breakfast!"

Alex has problems and they're a stubborn, surprisingly powerful little girl trying to tug her naked, sorry ass out of bed because _they're really good and have bananas_ and finally, Momma bear rescues Alex.

"Rubes, leave Alex be. Downstairs."

"Fine! She's not fun."

_Oh yeah?"_

"Ruby, what's the longest chapter book you read in school?"

"Uh, it had a Doctor Jekell and Mr. Hyde thing I think."

_Advanced. Smart. Makes sense her mom would be a high powered shark._

"Did you hear the one about Mr. Casualekell and Miss Formaldehyde?"

"I don't get it."

Whoever she is, Alex's hookup cocks her head, stares, then cracks up.

"Fine," she exclaims. "Dad jokes. You win. Take the little brat."

"Ruby, honey?"

"Yeah?"

"Mommy's friend is sick. She had trouble walking. So you need to give Alex some space and wait downstairs, 'kay?"

"'Kay."

Ruby shuffles off. Alex can hear the ball and chain dragging behind her.

"She's a good actress."

A roll of the eyes.

"Yeah. Gets me in lots of trouble at the park."

Mother launches onto Alex just as daughter had, though with very different intentions.

"There's a dozen pancakes and four syrups and no supervision. We won't see her before lunch."

She takes a tennis racket the kid had abandoned in here, wings it at the door hard enough to close it with a click.

"We're doing this again?" Alex asks.

A T-Shirt flies off to somewhere past heaven and Alex's hands are placed on tawny, lean hips. The brunette surges forward, driving Alex up against the headboard and creating a white-hot pinprick of contact between her thighs and Alex's mound and Alex's breath sticks deep in her lungs.

"We're doing this again."

"Alex."

"You don't remember?" the brunette chortles.

"Get out! You knew it last night, that's for sure. Fuck, you're adorable. Soon as you tell my kid a dad joke that makes us both laugh, you get my name. Until then..."

Alex is flipped again and a new trail of hickies starts at the base of her skull.

=====

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I haven't gotten image hosting up. Apparently IT is hard? But I do it for a living? So that's strange?


	11. Morning(s) After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex is done a startle, Cat is made an indecent proposal and something wicked, this way comes, and comes, and comes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gingers give me a tingly feeling. I'm largely Irish descent so may be genetic.

**Cat Grant**

"Kiera!" call hollers, trying to use the tone she uses for Carter.

There's not much of a wait time before her lioness comes padding around the corner. Winn is here, and Katie from art and that's it. Only half a dozen desks are in sight of Cat's office at any rate, separated by a flowerbed of jungle plants as a choke point so Cat can't get swarmed. Leftover instinct from the night she had to stagger to Gotham General with her intestines in her purse. Never let them come from all angles.

Her braids are messy -- Katie from art did them after _begging_ \-- and her feet are bare. At some point, the nickname slipped out of her mouth and Kara loved it. Her clothing is more relaxed today to, not only the less picky interpretation of business casual for weekend workers here but downright snuggly. Her jacket is this strange blue tweed number and under it is a loose knitted purple sweater that fits Kara snugly but the crochets are loose and Cat can see a red stripe, probable a bandeau bra, peek out now and then. The sweater looks soft as the clouds angels must sleep on.

"Yes, Kitty?"

When her mother calls her that, Cat shrinks back. When Kara does, left hand on hip, blue eyes like just before dawn and her pink, puffy, fat, and no doubt sugary and addictive lips bowed into a smile, the name is literal. Lioness is right and Cat is cared for no different than a lion's cub. If she's hungry, no doubt she'll receive half of Kara's truly obscene lunches. If she's scared, the physically larger female will defend her. She's already been groomed, for fuck's sake. There was a leaf in her hair from a misbehaving tree in her yard. Kara told her to hold still, plucked it out, turned Cat around with _a hand on her hip to check for more_ as if Cat wasn't wearing her raciest backless and yet still work-appropriate dress. Kara proceeded to lick a broad, a wet stripe from practically Cat's tailbone to the back of her skull. Communicating affection and humor and also warning Cat that she can bend her forward with her tongue and somehow, that doesn't seem like a super thing. It seems like something the hypothetically human Kara in her head could do. Big body, the leverage of a tall frame, a steady pressure, less than no desire to resist.

Then, as is her wont, she squeezed Cat's shoulders and left. 

Left her insides simmering like a witches' brew of desire and fantasies of things she could do or have done to her. It's Kara's true superpower, Cat supposes. Wind the woman up enough, a moment's affections as a promise she will finish the job and then come back at lunch. The water doesn't stay boiling but it never cools, either. Next thing she knows, Cat's humping Kara's leg like a dog, panting and white-knuckled on her glass desk as making a mess in her clothes fast as a teenage boy would.

"Kitty?" Kara prods.

"Oh," Cat startles. "I, well, you're easy on the eyes, Kara. Zoned out."

"Easy on the eyes. I know you are, but what am I?" 

Kara lets it out easily, confidently, as if calling Cat pretty is not the third silliest thing ever uttered after 'global warming is a hoax' and 'Donald Trump is going to be president'.

"Really, Kara? You find me..." Cat pauses. She's in decent shape, she knows and she cares for her skin above and beyond nature's built-in methods. She's never been meaty, though, and beginning menopause has made her look a shade emaciated, not helped by her reflexive dieting that she can't really _stop_ herself from doing after doing so since a class bitch in fourth grade shook her to the core. If she stops working out, her bones will lighten too much and any lover, let alone Kara, might shatter her.

Kara approaches her desk and stands, relaxed, on the other side. It's like when she puts her hand on her hip like that, the little tiny tilt of the shoulders the other way, Kara can somehow be at rest. A pillar of marble, tethered by its own strength.

"Cat," Kara tells her, slight smile. "When I feel you come, your cute little pussy fluttering on my skin and those quiet 'oh' sounds and your back arched, you know what I think of?"

"No."

"A butterfly. Tender, fluttering and colorful. Definitional. What people use to compare beauty to. Something so bright and delicate it couldn't have been born that way. It had to go through a metamorphosis, perhaps from a caterpillar or perhaps from an unpaid intern writing sex columns."

Cat's heart smacks slowly against her ribs, but hard, like a sledgehammer driving railroad spikes. Kara's smile is genuine.

"Now, what does my Kitty need?"

Cat's fingers are shaking as she moves into the drawer.

"I have an idea, for our little," Cat licks her lips because it's _lazy, confident, raw power just over an arm's length away_ and pulls out her hand-written list. "Uh, games?"

"Ooh," Kara coos. "Naughty, naughty Kitty."

She reads through it carefully, even pausing to stare at the coat closet and CEO's dressing room Cat mentions.

"It's a good start, actually. I do have some additions, though."

"I'm willing to consider them," Cat tells her, cautiously.

"Firstly," Kara says, flipping up the grommet on Cat's desk that controls things like the intercom, "I can do you one better on privacy. Watch."

She keys in some numeric code Cat doesn't recognize and presses a button. The doors to balcony and bullpen swing shut. The glass darkens.

"One way," Cat asks. 

"Mmm-hmm. Soundproofing polymer on the inside. Never removed when you renovated the place from LuthorCorp Mineral's old offices. We move my desk in here, Siobahn's once she's trained."

Kara picks up her phone.

"Winn, can you put the speaker up to Cat's window and give us some Pearl Jam on max?"

Cat sees the Bluetooth speaker pressed against the glass and sees Winn's earmuffs and she hears _nothing._

"Trade secrets," Cat realizes. "Lionel was notorious for protecting his offices like this. And Lex probably designed the glass."

Kara nods towards the coat closet.

"We make that a hallway to Howard Drake's old office. Six feet away, no pipes or wires between, heavy locking door on the hallway side, spacious. We can reclaim two hundred square feet from additional dead space in the walls. This place must have been built in a real hurry. Design is solid but enough wasted space to lease an office park to."

"Howard Drak-" Cat muses. "Oh."

Kara nods.

"You had it cleaned after his suicide but never used. We fit it out into a grotto, bedroom, kitchen, dressing room. Actually remove the door. Current dressing room becomes my superhero HQ. Winn's helping me there."

"He knows?" Cat hisses.

 _"After_ you did," Kara assures her. 

"Bunk bed and desk for Carter, I want that in my superhero area. Get to know him."

"Unbidden, sobs climb up Cat's through and Kara takes the tears on her fingers and flicks them away."

"We can talk more about that later. I think Winn, Katie are our lookouts and co-conspirators. Winn? Hell. He's a teddy bear I want to squeeze. Katie will do it for some selfies and me eating lunch with her and her wife sometimes. The other desks get moved out. More than a few employees who'd be willing to be far away from your office. Keep that legend going, it'll help."

"Anything else?"

"Cat, back home," Kara sighs. "I was, empress, I guess. Heir apparent to holdings on two hundred planets, thirty-nine deep-space stations, six military shipyards, who know how many robot-operated mines. My girlhood home was the Citadel of House El, a dreadnought from the Middle Wars we landed and refurbished. Like a _vish_ knife reaching up ninety kilometers into the sky. Space for my family, our servants, retainers, and our Honor Gaurd, first and second House Corps. If I snuck into my mother's office for five minutes, I could launch interstellar strategic weapons and start a war."

"You seem less snotty than I'd expect from that."

"My mother was our chief criminal judge and my aunt, her twin, a general but a soldier at heart. Humility came from them. It's gone. I keep the language, and my faith, my training and besides that, my memories."

"Training?" 

"You're looking at the youngest ever inductee to the Republic's Science Guild. Think of it like theoretical engineering. My dad had some sketchy, black-ops projects and the Guild wanted him out and off the Argo Academy's faculty board. So I was trained to take over. I'd think of something, see _if_ it could be built under the laws of physics, figure out if any of those laws had to be bent, and then try and build one."

"Page three," Kara instructs. "Secret ink. Use the UV flashlight."

"Now, the floor above you is empty in this area and below you, mostly mechanical. We put in a shield generator, power cores. Shell of calcified speed force layer sandwiching an N-Metal, warp fluid, N-Metal shell. We set up dense helical hydroponics, meat growing vat, air recycling, power conduits, a medical bay with Genesis and Chrysalis chambers. Workshop for my inner mad scientist, library, family room. Extra cabins over time for privacy as I shuffle some stuff on the next two floors down. We can renovate the executive floor cluster for cover. Transmit portals here, here, here and here, tied to Carter's homeroom's coat closet, your penthouse, specifically the dog's kennel, and my loft. One to my mom's study. Alex won't tell me where she lives, so that's tied to her bike. Push the panic button and all our family needs to do is get to those, dive through and they're here." 

"Like a spaceship. Amazing."

"Exactly. In six months, self-contained vacation home in the big city and if someone blows up Earth and we bounce around in the debris, the utility bots finish the engines and we warp off to wherever and start over. Because I've lost everyone from one whole life. And my adopted dad is missing. I can't lose anyone else."

"Two more things. We're getting some office therapy pets..."

Cat folds her arms.

"Whenever you say pets, my insides get wiggly."

Kara whistles and two gingers come around the corner. One is a dead ringer for a movie star whose name Cat forgets and one is a sleek twink with hipster glasses and a face with lickably cute freckles. They're ghostly pale and the woman's gaze is piercing and her diamond-shaped face ends in a substantial chin. A chin much like her high school boyfriend, safe for the softness, and the slight dimple that makes it little-girl cute. Cat has vivid memories of grinding a few out on the chin while hot breath painted her mound and baby blues stared up at her, amused. The way that woman looks at Cat, that's her dream in life.

|   
  
---|---  
  
"Harry, and Anastasia. Stacy."

They wait at her office door. Cat chews her lip. Are they fuckable? Hell yes. Does Cat want to try to suck the freckles out of the woman's skin? Hell yes. Can she cover them up? No.

"They live with you?"

"Committed partners. High school sweethearts. Bit of background. Harry has social anxiety at least when his clothes are on. Stacy is well, I guess now it's called sex addiction. Highly functional, though. Think of a heroin addict and there are six doses in the fridge, little hearts drawn on each vial, carefully measured, clean needles, all that. Enough to keep her living her life but also getting those hits."

"Six?"

"Figure of speech. We set goals together and if she's hitting them, all we can give her. Unless she's having a rough time of it, or losing herself, we don't ration."

"Anything else? Jobs, besides eating you out?"

"Remember when I talked about Harry's anxiety? He's crazy brave. He has a live-streamed fitness channel and every three days, he shows off to nine million followers, total strangers, sixty-one percent women and shows them how to work out. That's how he makes his living. Wait till you see his abs!"

"Stacy runs an eBay business. Used electronics and classic appliances, she and I do a car together sometimes. She's brilliant and she worked it out to a minimal clothing system. Basically means every couple of weeks, she orders a mystery pallet of returns and items given back as broken, spends a few days repairing, sorting, recycling the useless crap. That keeps inventory up. She repacks everything and locks it up. Then she posts hours on the page for she has her phone on to answer customer questions. Inventory is locked up in the basement of my apartment building. She texts a code to UPS, they can go fetch locker 33 or whatever and ship it. Besides that, naked on my couch or telecommuting to her classes at Duke, with the camera angled so no one can see she's naked."

Cat smiles.

"Impressive for concubines," she teases.

"They..." Kara sighs. "What I said is part of it. We are high school sweethearts but they were kidnapping victims. I bumped into them doing vigilante stuff and we hit it off. Orphaned by their takers. Orphans _get_ orphans, you know? So I made up a little secret cabin and we grew up together and grew into each other, sexually, emotionally, spiritually."

"That's thing one. Hard to turn down her eyes, Kara. Dirty trick. What's thing two?"

Kara's grin is wider and the canine teeth seem to _glint_ right now.

"Brainwashing your enemies."

Cat's eyebrow arches.

"Stacy?" Kara calls out. "She can explain better."

Stacy's gait is that of a stripper on stage. She gathers up her fiery locks and holds them over her head as she fiddles with a scrunchy. Swing, swing, swing, of the hips and clack, clack, clack of her wedge heels. Like an hourglass made of ivory swishing back and forth on a chain of rubies.

"You know that game in elementary school where the kid takes your hat and says 'no I'm didn't' and just denies it? His friends do too? You know it happened but no one else admits it? Start to get a little batty?"

"I'm familiar with it yes."

"The sex version thereof. A lot of your corporate enemies are not exactly believable in the public eye. So, imagine, if someone with low street cred like Morgan edge comes in here. Siobhan's got Kara's thighs around her neck, Harry's got me over the couch, one of our selected 'allies' for this prank is in here. We've hunted them down in every apartment, the likely ones. He looks around and thinks he's got you and he launches into some tirade. Jenny from sports looks at him all confused. Asks what he means, Kara's just sitting there taking notes and she doesn't see these naked gingers he's blathering on about. There's a field that will detect any electronics and we'll confiscate those."

"He goes to the media with this wild tale of the world's most famous feminist CEO having a crazy sex party in her office and during a meeting no less!"

"And you just don't reply. You don't deny it, you just never schedule another in person with him. He won't let it go and he'll finally just sound like a raving loon in a shitty suit. We limit our games to here, Kara's loft, your penthouse. I have...coaxed...a number of food and package delivery people to my side. They're on retainer. We can have date nights in and movie nights with Carter and it's deniable that we live together."

Cat sighs.

"Still risky."

Kara reaches down and grabs a massive steel briefcase. Inside is enough cash, small bills, neatly bundled, probably three dozen passports, and half dozen silenced pistols which might actually be ray guns, on a closer look. She grabs a second one full of power bars and medical kits plus what seem to be spacesuits and helmets along with more pistols and short rifles. A go-bag, Cat realizes, enough to get out of the country in a day without leaving a whisper of a trail.

"Riskier than redundant escape plans, three remote properties I own on private islands, five hundred million in gold bullion, ten million of it in this case, as a retirement plan can back? "

"No, not that risky."

"Yes!" Stacy squeals, pumping her fist.

"Oh, Cat, darlin', we're gonna have so much fun."

She plants a bare foot and a milky leg on Cat's office chair and pushes back.

"What are the safewords, Cat?" Kara asks.

"Green, or finance if it needs to be clandestine."

"Good."

"Orange, or legal."

"Good."

"Red, or human resources."

Stacy settles down on her knees, unzips Cat's skirt and slides her panties down, putting them in her slacks' front pocket. She leans in and breathes deep.

"Y'all smell like the beach ah used to swim at. Salty, coppery. Happy memories."

Kara nods at Stacy.

"Green, Cat?"

Cat rests her palms on Stacy's head and lets gravity keep them there.

"Green."

Kara smiles. 

"I'll start on renovations then." She unzips the duffel she brought and pulls out dust masks, power saws, and a sledgehammer before stripping down. 

"Oh sweet god," Cat croaks.

Stacy hasn't done more than breathe yet and kittenlick a few times but the sight of Kara's half-naked body for the first time? That nearly took her over the cliff's edge headfirst. 

Kara has a crimson silk ribbon, no, more like a broad, bunched up strip of cloth binding her breasts and a similar strip, tied in a V shape over her hips and between her legs. Glowing golden ropes secure both knots like the holy artifacts, like the bonds that kept some beast at bay in the mythology of a forgotten fertility goddess. Her muscles are just _offensive_ that there's so many and they hide under just enough softness and fat that she looks fitness model sleek until she moves and then they line up like soldiers in slender, hard groups and they _fucking dance_ as she hefts the hammer. 

"Homemade lingerie?" Cat asks. "Toga?"

"Could be either but these pieces are smaller. Has to be a tough fabric, obviously. This isn't silk."

Kara clips the dust mask on Cat's face. 

"Don't want my Kitty sneezing."

As Stacy works, Cat breathes harder and soon she's not just fogging up her eyeglasses, which she tosses aside, Cat's fogging up her _eyelashes_. Stacy's lips zero in on the knot of nerves and throb and _ache_ and her freckled cheeks hollow and the slurping sound is rude and squelchy and not sexy but the feeling is and a wink tells her that Stacy could do this all day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fact that these two look so much like famous people is going to lead some tabloids to tear their hair out.


	12. Morning(s) After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex is done a startle, Cat is made an indecent proposal and something wicked, this way comes, and comes, and comes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lifehack!

**Kara Danvers**

Kara wipes her forehead on the towel. She slides the sledgehammer down with a pleasant 'thunk' and looks around. Drywall gone, replaced with foam-stone of calcium and iron softened by lack of access to depleted thorium. Far tougher than plaster or drywall but they can put screws in it to hang posters. Holding her arms out, she twirls, bringing the dust in the room close to her and thus, the shopvac.

She grabs the remote for her transmat and clicks it four times. Batch four appears, flash after flash. A dozen pillows, Egyptian cotton sheets, bough from the boutique near Eliza's house. Cat's Xanax in a years supply, Stacy's melatonin, Kara's energy bars and drinks. Seven multi-alloy mesh chairs, minimalist and square, like in Cat's office, only made from the same things as the scoutship's hull, three matching couches and a carved, Kandoori style canopy bed big enough for however many they like, fully across one wall of the room. Noble-gas-filled air pockets for all pillows and cushions in sight. Krypton gas, merely because Kara couldn't resist.

"It's a start," the tells herself.

She heads back to check on her kitty.

Cat, Rao bless her, is video-chatting with Max Lord. Telling him to lay off her new hero or else. She has her palms on the rim of her desk and arms are tensed up. Her look is steel itself and then, Kara notices, her fingers curl.

****

"She'll be a blessing to the city, Max. You're a logical man. Give me time to prove it. A sample size of one plane? Already on fire when she caught it? Three aliens with simliar powers to hers interfering? I don't care that the planes in pieces at the bottom of the harbor. That was a playing field slanted against her...not fair to her abilities."

Kara gasps, covering her mouth before Max Lord can hear her sobbing.

"I'll keep her from knocking over your building if you strain yourself from spouting any moronic Ayn Rand shit into one of my cameras. Enjoy the weekend."

Cat hangs up.

"Thank you," Kara sniffs. "That's one thing _I can't do._ Make them like me."

"Good thing," Cat hisses. "That I can do just that."

Cat groans and she slumps and air leaves her in tiny 'ah-ah-ah' gasps and then Kara hears the soft, moaning, suckling sound of Stacy settling in for a marathon. Peeking, Kara sees Stacy has repositioned herself a made liberal use of throw pillows. She's in an almost neutral posture. Her neck is aligned, her hips cocked under her, padded with a foam yoga pad and memory pillows.

"Like she's nursing, isn't it? Soft and steady and only really turning you on if you ask for more?"

Cat nods.

"As a mother who's breastfed, I'm trying to think very hard about _not_ using that word."

Kara dips her head.

"Fair."

There's a sigh and Stacy must have pulled back.

"Three hours and countin' and lord, she tastes good. Easy. Not too sharp. She even made me up a drink. Ah'm cozy as can be down here. Sippin' whisky and sippin' pussy."

Cats hands twitch again as if in the realization of what she's in for. She's never experienced this, Stacy pulling apart a new lover in microscopic detail, learning as much as she can about how they like it and show she likes it from them. Learning as much as she can before she has to put clothes on.

"Protip: backrubs. She get sore from leaning forward but if you massage her shoulders? She'll do that till she drifts off."

Cat lowers her hands to Stacy's shoulders and Kara sees the strong grip she's using and slow circles of the thumb. Stacy groans into Cat and she arches her back.

"Oh, my, oh _Anastasia_ ," Cat breathes.

Kara smiles.

"I think I've brought a lot into your life, Cat, haven't I?"

A nod.

"Have you ever _performed_ with a woman or only _received?"_

"R-r-received," Cat gasps. "and not since college."

Kara kneels down beside her.

"Today, you'll learn that, Cat. Unless you really don't want to. I won't make you but I have to know what you're like. Soon," Kara sighs.

"Please."

"Go shower," Cat suggests. "I'll relocate this little vampire between my legs and we can all learn from each other..."

* * *

**Cat Grant**

After a few attempts to get her rhythm between Kara's legs, Kara sighed and said they would need to work on that later. The fact that she was ashamed she couldn't eat Kara out is probably trouble. She wanted to and she wanted to do good and no amount of protestation from Kara that it was fine and that if worse came to worse and sex didn't work, Cat was still a good person, really helped.

It took her mind off it though when Kara pressed Cat to her desk and told Harry to come over. The kid's good. If she hadn't looked up his YouTube channel after, she wouldn't have believed he had the _time_ to do anything else. This was the result of years of practice with partners who gave good feedback. He was hard, yes, and pleasantly thick, but mostly he was intuitive. One slow, probing stroke and he pulled back and used his fist to block himself, to keep from bottoming in her even when he really picked up speed. She made a little grunt and he changed her angle. Ex-husbands wouldn't have noticed, or let her grit through it, but he stopped, let himself cool, lifted her onto another pillow, and got her comfortable.

All of a fucking sudden, Kara told him to stop and he did.

_'I'm the one fucking you right now, Cat. Harry's helping me but if I ask him to, he'll stop.'_

In that instant, a few scrapes of her G-spot away from falling apart, Cat hated her for it.

_'I just wanted you to know that. Harry, please make love to my Kitty and I'll watch.'_

Hooded, dangerous blue eyes flicked the length of Cat's back and one long hand played with her hair and Kara's big fingers strummed between her own legs and Cat could only stare at a mound that looked like ice and butter, it was so pale and sparkling with wetness and splashed with golden curls and a slit that yawned like a purple petal, the pink at the edges long gone as it had become swollen with all the watching and waiting Kara had done. They had dozens of orgasms collectively, by lunch and she'd refrained.

Harry shivered and kissed her spine and pulled out and tenderly rubbed her to her own finish -- she wasn't going to give the game away that he'd already given her two -- and there was kissing and cuddling all around and Kara washing Cat down with a sponge. She had blessedly set an alarm on her phone for when Carter was done tutoring.

Kara, her soft-spoken, growly, entrancing, terrifying lioness, drove her home. Kissed her goodbye. Squeezed her still-jellied thigh and told her she was sexy and she was loved.

Cat motherfucking Grant, Queen of All Media, cannot fall in love at first sight. Unacceptable. Let alone fall in love with some towering domme less than half her age with a flashbulb smile and welding-torch bright eyes and a mind that frightens Cat, it's so sharp. With swagger and those _fucking arms_ and those _unfair abs_ and _legs for days_ and _hair for weeks_ and a smile Cat actually wants. Wants to be the reason for the smile. That style of control and sternness that's like a hickey, sweet and sloppy hot until its too much, but always followed by a wisecrack and a stroke on the cheek. Never a true punishment, no matter how Cat snarled and whined. Nothing like painful. She can't be charmed, no matter how genuine the girl seems.

CatCo Cat can't be someone who falls in love at all. The business world isn't going to soften or respect anything less than a steel-edged rusty bitch just because Kara makes her want to relax and be that boss who asks her employees who are struggling if they need anything and allows little-league signups in the breakrooms. The boss with a team, not the boss with peasants. The boss half of Carter's classmates have at their Silicon Valley jobs. Cat has to be an asshole and a raw, unpleasant life without a shred of a support structure and exactly one friend -- publicly her enemy has meant with just eight years of anything close to happiness. The Carter years. That made verbal cruelty and holding people to impossible standards as easy as breathing.

Then her lioness gave her one final command for the day. Change something about how maintenance cleans her office and _thank the janitor_ for it. Cat did, before she could even think of the implications and the white-haired old fellow smiled wide and nodded. Cat felt like a good person because Kara ordered her to do something that would make her be seen as good. Draw it out of her.

So the fact is that Cat Calista Ford Grant -- she deserves that last name more than its owner -- already _has_ fallen and fallen hard and she doesn't care.

She does care about not pitching into the floor face first and hurting herself when she has 40 whole hours with her office shuttered and Carter to herself. Cat can walk through this door and she'll swear that under oath but it doesn't mean it's easy. 

Cat is glad Carter's only eight. She hasn't let him watch -- nor has he showed interest in -- the sort of TV shows that show a 'morning after' let alone whatever she looks like right now. Less of fresh fucked and more of 'used as a hackeysack' she suspects.

"Hi, mom!" Carter calls from the kitchen table.

"Hi, sweetie!"

He looks over to see his mom hopping around by the front door for a moment, trying to remove her ridiculous shoes. Shoes she should have known better than after the General Tso's incident that left her unable to stand for two hours but they're part of her armor, wearing shoes that cost two-months salary for most of her _editors_ let alone rank and file.

"Wait!" he calls out.

Scurrying over, he stands beside her.

"Hand on my shoulder, please, mom. That way you won't fall."

"Such a gentleman," she teases. "I'll start dinner. What's your homework?"

"History, mostly," he sighs. "Like, I get that it's supposed to be a warning but maybe we could bullet point that? Couple pages. Don't a Nazi. Don't spill oil. Don't blow up Afghanistan or you'll make someone mad and blow up the World Trade Center. It's not practical to read whole books to get simple do or don't no statements out of it," he grumps.

"You've been watching Ms Luthor's Masterclass on mental efficiency again, haven't you?"

**Can you blame the kid???  
** (Trivia: They had to use a male camera crew because the three female videographers on staff all passed out.)

"No!" he squeaks, red and fidgety as if he'd been caught with a _Playboy_.

"She's very pretty, I know," Cat teases.

"She's very _smart,"_ he corrects her. "And I think she's like me," he says, tapping his head. "She focuses. It's all about one thing. You can see it."

_He might be right. She has a reputation for being unstoppable but another one for never showing at the family galas._

Cat has _carte blanche_ from Kara, up to the limit of her superhero identity, and during that damp cool-down snuggling, Cat peppered her alien with questions. Kara demurred on some but answered most. Kara actually told a story today that might help.

"What's your unit on right now, Carter?"

"Uh...Rebellions. So, Irish and Argentine, the one against Peron."

Cat manages to get her second shoe off and squeezes his shoulder.

"So my friend said that she used to love history but in college it was hard work and wasn't fun. Then she didn't love it as much. Kind of like you."

"Yeah, I guess. What'd she do?"

So, Cat tells him, glancing at the kitchen.

"She ate it."

"I don't understand."

"So, you said Ireland and Argentina, right?"

"Uh-huh. How about I make us some corned beef sandwiches and an _empanada_ or three, huh? Those ar-"

"Irish and Argentine!" Carter exclaims. "She made it fun again! Whoever she is, she's brilliant."

"Yeah, she is. Her name's Kara and we work together."

This is now Cat Grant discovers that you don't just _make_ corned beef, it takes four hours at least and probably a sacrifice to the Fair Folk or a prayer to Saint Michael, Patron Saint of Battle, judging by her kitchen after attempt number three at a 'shortcut recipe'. Worse, empanadas are damn near impossible on the first try no matter how well you did in Spanish back at Radclifee, or how well you did in seducing tall, dark, Latin ne'er-do-wells who performance cooked for one night stands. 

Takeout exists, she realizes.

She texts Kara, the laughs so sudden and sharp it startles Cartrer.

_This is the first thing I've done with her I've had other assistants do for me._

Takeout exists and one text to Kara provides her with a list of nearly every takeout place in town cross-referenced by dish, hours, speed, cost and so on. She might've typed it with super speed but her phone would've melted during that 13-second gap.

Kara likes takeout. More than just, not cooking, either. It's one of her things, judging by a private replica of Yelp with its own three-axis scoring system and a series of to-tries and so on. Living with an alien appetite, a nudist and hair-trigger sex kitten and a shy man for a roommate, it makes sense. Limited time, greasy foods are a plus not a minus, high likelihood of being tackled into the stove, no one interested in going out.

Cat has leverage now.

* * *

**Astra In-Ze**

The Martian strides into the room, head held high, even as two of her more uncouth underlings his and scowl. As if now was the time to revive the sun-and-sand purity movement that led to twenty billion simultaneous deaths while an empire of cities sat idle, dusted and cared for by robots.

"Silence!" Astra barks. "Mars and Krypton have bled together in the past. I will no have such men in my command. Go. Take your armor, leave your weapons. You are no longer welcome in my unit."

M'Gann stops before the command console, dips her bone-crowned green head and puts her fist to her chest. Whatever led her to flee to Earth, she has known war and it Astra needs know telepathy to know she is not broken, nor is she mad with a vengeance. Like Astra, she is a soldier shaken loose, just passing time waiting for a cause.

"What news, M'Gann?"

"The older one, Ka-."

"Younger one."

"Yes, General, my apologies. He has hunted down and sent away the last escapees save the two Martians with me and Jindah Kol Rozz, herself. The prison has been thrown into the sun with her inside."

_Moron. She'll only get stronger in the core of a star._

"He does not seem interested in your presence. Perhaps he assumes the Justice League can counter us."

Astra scoffs.

"If he won't face me, he's wiser than I hoped, even if he's wrong. What else?"

"A human has become troubling. An Agent Danvers."

Astra's eyebrow rises.

"Danvers, you say?"

"Yes. She works with the Americans though with which agency, I have not determined. Either psy-blockers or a hostile telepath, a skilled Martian, by their power, has screened my every attempt to enter the building and she has detected several of my tails while moving about her daily life. She has an uncanny knowledge of alien cultures. One of our spies was captured by her and he confessed."

"A rod, a battery and a drug can extract a confession."

"She convinced him he had fought well and to honor a Braalian clan rite, General. One from his particular clan. The Shield of the Broken."

"That rite must be done in Old Braalian."

"Apparently, she speaks it. He said she did when we confronted him. He said she simply interviewed him, as she did human prisoners present. None were beaten."

"Humans could not come by such depth of knowledge without exposure. Even if Braalian rites were the only topic, a computer could not impart such sincerity as to convince a native. She would have had to have had contact, socially, for quite some time."

_Could there be others? Other High House members? Perhaps a Coluan prince or a Skyhavenite priestess?_

Astra looks at the half-insane, fully nude Coluan wrapped around her leg. Indigo was never loyal to Non, though her seduction of him was useful in ferreting out Non's treachery. Indigo has only ever been loyal to the woman who broke her body before a rampant virus made her kill her family. Astra. In Coluan law, there is no debt for freeing someone from cybernetic disease and Astra sought none. Indigo invoked an older, more basic concept from pre-cybernetic Colu. 

She would only ever have children because Astra saved her. Astra had seen kindness in her worst moment. Her children should be Astra's.

"Indigo, darling?"

"Hmm," the cyborg purrs. "What, my sworn?"

"Check for any other spaceships approaching earth since Kal-El's."

Indigo's eyes flutter shut and holographs of data flow like fast-running water between her hands.

"One. Outline consistent with an Argonite skiff or an Honor Gaurd corvette. Landed in Scotland, 12 years ago then took back off and crashed in Antarctica."

"Wreckage?"

"None. Either vaporized or pierced the ice sheet."

"Anything else?"

"Two high-energy signatures emerged six days later, and this was photographed by human spy satellites."

Indigo holds up her palm.

A burial pod in House El colors with Lyta-Zod's body inside, her hands wrapped in her niece's favorite scarf. It passed so close to the satellite as it left, the frozen tears on its surface can be seen.

"When was this?"

"Two days after we crashed, General."

"In the chaos, we didn't see..." Astra sighs.

"M'Gann, tomorrow morning, find my niece. Whatever she is now, whatever fool ideas the humans beat into her, she and I will _not_ end in bloodshed. The House of El does not die on my blade, no In-Ze die on hers."

"Tonight..." Astra sighs.

Preparations are becoming difficult to make without being seen. She has to send six soldier teams out or she doesn't get them all back intact and with Danvers making the humans a viable threat and her mystery source being someone Astra cannot bear to harm, the operation is all but over.

"Tonight, why don't you share Indigo with me?"

M'Gann smiles.

"Everyone else, get some sleep. Watch of eight, batten down everything. Defenses up but lights and antennas down. We go to siege stance tomorrow and cease transmissions and travel."

"Yes, General!" they shout as one.

Outside the port she walks past, a dolphin wanders up to the edge of the crashed ship's energy field, curious, and swishes away when its nose gets zapped. A thousand fish of a hundred kinds scatter with the life support system releases a belch of oxygen.

There is beauty here on Earth. Beauty of a wild kind, beauty Krypton hadn't had in eons, maybe ever. The memories would be long gone, if they were ever there.

If only she could save it without slaughtering the original owners. Share it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Indigo was such delicious madness back in S1 and Astra deserves a forever girl!


	13. Tinker, Tailor, Super, Spy (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where childhood never really leaves us, sisterhood is painful and is forever, there are things more precious than duty and fools rush in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the DC universe, ARGUS is a branch of the Pentagon focused on metahumans. In some cases (depending on her origin modern vs. past), Steve Trevor works for them and Diana sometimes accompanies them as Wonder Woman. The DEO exists separately because, probably, it was needed for a different comic and it seems those guys don't cross-check to see if something already exists. In Supergirl comics it's run by either a skeleton made of cyanide bones or Cameron Chase who is gay but just not an interesting lesbian besides that.
> 
> In our canon, ARGUS was founded just over a year ago following the emergence of Flash and Cyborg shortly after Wonder Woman revealed herself, which indicated not only increased pace, but these extraordinary individuals would not simply come falling from space or rising from fairytales under the sea or charging out of Greek myth. They would just _happen_ in various places and among humans.
> 
> A pre-existing project called STARWIND began the day after Fort Rozz crashed twelve years ago, absorbing NASA's Advanced Propulsion think tank, various cyberwarfare specialists, weapons engineers, and plucking special forces operators with faked 'deaths' in combat zones.
> 
> STARWIND was merged with the beginnings of the ARGUS project. Together they form the Department of Extranormal Operations as a more well-equipped, less grabbing-at-straws with their pants down version than we see on CW. More like SHIELD HQ or Starbase One or Battlestar Galactica's hangar deck, less like an office building in Vancouver with some quasi-fancy tables.

**Alex Danvers**

The next time she drives by a Barnes and Noble, Alex is buying a how-to book on standup. It was an honest loss. She made mother laugh, or daughter laugh, but never both. So her mystery playmates' name remains lost to alcohol burned off by orgasms.

Ruby, though! Maybe Alex will be used for color in the toast at Ruby's wedding. Remember that one lady my mom banged? She told knock-knock jokes! About waffles! What an idiot! 

Live on in that beautiful girl's life story. Maybe that's enough. 

It's not like Alex will get to have kids. Frodo didn't go back to the shire and start a backyard garden. Pre-Kara Alex doesn't get to go back to post-Kara Alex who has a sister and who needs to protect her so, so, so much. 

Kids and futures are what happened to her and Rachel or she might've completed a mary-fuck-kill of marry sad, cuddly Rachel who liked to sing into her coffee and could have just _told_ Alex about Trigon, fuck sweet, silly, ordinary Sam, and kill Vandal Savage with a solution this resurrection powers that should have been obvious centuries ago. Would have to be some kind of Justice League medal in that, right?

Two out of three.

Alex revs the Ducati as she takes the curve of the earth-covered reservoir fast, bends into the lot and parks her bike outside the Water Department's pump building. She swipes her badge.

"Morning, Joe."

"Morning," the big agent grunts. "What you doing here?"

"Trouble at pump..."

Joe tenses, the hand she can't see going to his weapon.

"Fourteen. Compressor, they said."

Joe laughs and pushes the button.

"You gotta drink less or sleep more, kid."

"Usually the latter," Alex sighs.

She really has cut back, thank goodness. The episodes are worrisome, but the possibility of a spiral is what terrifies her.

She steps into the elevator. The computer fires up and the thing starts dropping.

"State name, assignments, and, for security purposes, informal callsign."

"Danvers, Alex. Director of Operations, STARWIND and Field Commander of Tactical Units, Covert Division lead. Clamjam."

_Going to kill Vasquez one day for pinning me with that._

"Granted. Welcome back to ARGUS-STARWIND Installation 002, Director. State destination."

"Command, please."

It amazes her that this all happened in 12 years. Superman's pod was caught on telescope and that may have started people wondering thirty years ago but when another ship landed, a prison this time, things kicked into gear. Nothing gets funding like a threat or brainpower like a moonshot project. Starships are being assembled below her under camouflage mesh labeled 'Project Ring Cycle'. Not derelicts, either. Human designs.

Several of Washington's pet metahumans from ARGUS special forces units are mimicking different alien powers as best they can to train her men and test their armor and defenses. 

A bulk order of scrapped Helgramite bulldozers from the black marked are being torn down for hull crystals and fuel rods.

A grizzled, gray-skinned Sagittarian with pitted armor carapaces and a torn middle-left mandible is teaching a class in energy blade combat to cadet team three.

A group of Green Martians and Episilon Geminians are sitting on cushions with sketchpads and mentally-malleable gel, their minds reaching out to detect threats and make suspect sketches and lift blueprints and plans of attack from the minds drawing them.

The elevator pauses and Vasquez steps in, rubbing her shoulder. 

"He's good, by the way. Best workout I've had this year. Those the new _Sigruns?"_ She asks.

"Yeah. They got the FTL-to-sublight-to-combat state workflow sorted so they're ready. Thank god we didn't go with _Brunnhidle_ class."

"How you been, Alex? I can ask that as a friend because I'm off duty now."

She doesn't really have an off duty-look, just an old bomber jacket, mussing her hair up with gel, and unzipping her jumpsuit halfway.

"Hard to tell, sometimes. Then why are you riding down?" Alex teases.

"I'm not riding down. I'm _going down_ but she bunks on Level 18 so..."

Alex snorts.

"You're impossible, marine."

_"Semper Fricatrice."_

"That's terrible. You're disgusting, you know that?"

"Not what Doctor Hamilton was saying last night," Vasquez shoots back.

"She was on duty!" Alex complains. "What if there had been a trauma flight coming in from the Brazil job?"

"Well, I'd put her pants back on, obviously. She would've been all loose and relaxed. Zen."

"How do I run this place? With you fucking anything with flaps, slits or anything remotely vaginal looking?"

"Answered your own question, boss. Stuff like that? Just bonding, drinking, being a shit? Being myself around them? It helps."

"True, that's called 'outreach' and 'humanizing'. But where in your briefing packet did it say, gunnery chief, Assault Division lead, and _alienfucker_?"

"Lois Lane wrote me a hall pass. I mean, if TMZ is to be believed, she's the Amelia Earhart of this brave new breed of Earth girls."

She shoulders Alex playfully.

"Don't worry! I do have standards and I've gotten really good at the whole which-is-which thing so I think I get my Lesbian Card back since I've only fucked things that slot that female or female-ish role in their societies and biology. And also, you have got to try Sagittarians. Their skin is like, pre-lubed and it smells amazing. Long fingers, you know? Long. Under the armor, they're like baby-hamster soft. They can flatten their teeth back so they actually kiss really well, it's just sort of a grab-your-whole-face thing. Plus, females are always triplets, you see. Brain-linked, so when I get my fingers _under_ the cara-"

Alex learned how to zone out in medical school. She's really glad for it right now.

=====

The Control Center is in chaos when she arrives.

"Status," Alex snaps at the nearest cluster of officers and workstations.

"Terrorism scare," Jameson explains, coming up beside her and nodding at the scrambling officers, mostly fairly green. "First, for everyone except deputy's heads."

"We got tests back on the Flight 237 device," he adds, handing her a pad. "And a scan of the backup device. It never detonated. One the plane was going down, seems it switched off. The device used Coluan circuits, Hellgrammite fuel gel, Inferninan saliva for the backup trigger explosive, and believe it or not, we found an etching of a Starhavenite's feather on the casing. All could have been salved, or all could have been purpose-built. Quite the potpourri."

Alex nods, flipping through the images.

"Well assembled though. Redundant, able to detect being detached, fail deadly chemical assist if the electrical trigger got cut or baked. Professionals. Whose seat was it under? Mine? No. Couldn't be. I switched flights."

"Ticket was purchased with Bitcoin, using only a passenger number with a row to either side and front and back, two more bodies paid for. Expensive. Paranoid rich person and bodyguards. That section is so trashed, a hundred people could have died in there or no one could have been there. No way to tell."

She sighs.

"Anyone else seen this?"

"No ma'am, you and me. Quick Response, Assault and Covert tagged file, division level, so just us. Well, since Vasquez never reads hers."

Alex chews her lip.

"She does not, true. Lock it down. No one else sees it. Walk with me."

"Ma'am," he says, falling in behind her.

"Dismissed," Alex tells the guards at the door.

She holds it open for Jameson.

"This is backbone intel, Assistant Director. Do you understand? This being secret is one of the things keeping this place standing."

Alex enlarges the Starhavenite feather etching.

"This was the calling card of a Coluan spy, assassin, and thief for hire. When she did something that needed to end up going into the public domain, she carved this on a wall or she put it in the device. If she didn't, no one ever saw her. Goes by Indigo. Legend. According to records, pardoned from Fort Rozz six years before Krypton exploded. Nine years, for us."

"So it's unlikely she's here."

"Nine guards were killed on the docks. During her release. Explosion. Ruled an accident and she's presumed dead but, still. She is exactly the sort of person who could defeat investigators from Krypton and Colu working together."

"And a dead woman, dead woman-computer-robot-whatever blend, she wouldn't be building bombs today."

"Exactly."

"How is this backbone intel?"

"Nine years ago, on that very _day_ , my..." Alex pauses.

"My adoptive aunt, I suppose, was sentenced and delivered to Fort Rozz."

"Not following," Jameson replies. "Uh, ma'am."

"My adoptive sister is Kryptonian, Jameson. Excluded from our purview, President's orders at Justice League request, not mine, before you wonder."

"I trust you, Director. But..."

"Let me finish, Jameson. My sister lived more than half her life there. She's twenty one now, or will be soon. Left when she was fourteen. Very close to Astra, the aunt who got imprisoned. The fun aunt, you know? Let Kara get into trouble. Who used to hang around with a female Coluan more than a respectable, high-born and _married_ Kryptonian woman should."

"Indigo, you think?"

"I'm thinking who better for fuck-it-or-kill-it loose cannon spy to fall in love with than a by-the-book soldier with medals of honor and courage named after her that she herself later won? Vice versa? Why else break _back into_ prison? Unless your girlfriend's there you're officially dead so prison means you can just stay near her and never have to look at her husband again."

"Astra was on our never-found list," Jameson sighs. "Her whole unit. We think that CADMUS had one, maybe, but I can't confirm they _exist_ and that lab that might have been theirs got trashed two nights back by what sure looks like a Kryptonian team, working together. So we put the count of never-founds back at the whole unit. Plus those nasty white Martian twins."

"Exactly. Astra's good, Jameson. We're not going to catch her until we catch her whole unit. We catch one of her soldiers and chances are excellent the rest will try and catch us. Thirty-two shock troops with as much training as the staff in this building between them, alien consultants included, packing Superman's powers but they've used them in yellow-sun, white sun, and blue-sun systems _in wars_ and they're organized. Thirty-two beings with destructive power greater than the US nuclear stockpile, each capable of tying up whole air forces, bare-handed bunker busters, and probably shit we don't have a term for. Under her command and on our planet."

"Then thirty-three. Astra. There's not an easy human comparison. Krypton had been pretty quiet for a long time and then towards the end, as people smelled weakness, _thought they did,_ the smaller nations and empires pounced. She was the one that pushed them back, made her point and in some cases, de-spaced them. Just scrapped their ships and made them commercially dependent on Krypton and it's allies for space travel. The only Admiral in the planet's living memory who fired a shot. The only General who landed dirt-side for more than a parade. Wars at that scale? Across a galaxy? The same soldier might command ships in hundreds of battles on as many planets, fight dozens of localized wars in given slices of the galaxy. Each has all the usual details, terrain, surprises, setbacks. And she _beat them all_ and survived. Basic logic indicates she's extremely resourceful and dangerous just for being a commander for three hundred eighty-five years and living, knowing no specifics of what those expoits were. To veterans, she might be their Eisenhower, Nimitz, Pershing, De Gaulle, Phyruss, Scipius Africanus, depending on the war and the outcome. In Kryptonian zeitgeist at the end? She's all of them. She was hundreds of our years old when imprisoned and had been serving since she was twenty-two, ranking since she was late forties. Before Rome fell, so to speak, the barbarians came at the walls eighty-two times. Never got over them and she made them regret trying."

"Looking at her achievements, Jameson, and her style of command? As a soldier, I _like her_ and I would follow her in a heartbeat if I wasn't already standing here. Frankly, I'm surprised they got away with convicting her for the coup, she was so well known. The only other officers of any race with that kind of experience would be Daxamites at High Command and thus would be dead in the explosion of Rao."

Jameson nods, slowly.

"So the lover of the most skilled soldier alive, in the galaxy, is here, and she's taking potshots at _someone_."

"Probably not me."

"Probably not, boss but it feels like the who _is_ pretty huge here."

"Agreed. And it feels like it's pretty huge if this is out of _grief_ , or if it's out of _love_? Indigo's bad news and her file has some indications she's unstable. Over the top kills, doing things for style points, so on. So far, nothing I've found says she's actually crazy. If she's a psychopath, sadist, addict, whatever? She gets it done. But if she's taking Astra's death out on us, and I'm reading their relationship right, she will have snapped. Kara said she Indigo was fun but I think the no-impulse-control sense of it, not the carefully planned vacation type. If she's grieving, we're probably dead men walking. Nuclear power plant failures we can't detect, hijacked Pfizer robots preparing bioweapons in flu vaccines. Nanites sprayed onto teddy bears that will boot up and eat our children. But if Astra's alive and whole and still here...if this is part of an organized campaign?"

"Fuck."

"Fuck," Alex agrees. "Best and steadiest soldier, best and craziest assassin. Aimed right at us. I'm scared and I'm the only human who might get a pass in this mess. The favorite of _her_ favorite."

Alex keys open her safe. She pulls out a glowing red crystalline brick with a USB cable hanging off of it.

"Take this. Go to a coffee shop, plug it in, count to ten, pull it out and run. Do not leave it there, soldier. NSA will have little black men there in less than a minute."

"What is it?"

"A computer virus, or rather, a creature that lives in digital spaces and owes me. Doctor Cyber. I helped her shut down her human body and go fully artificial after her injury. This is a shard, something with a sliver of her brain and that she can control remotely. If it's on a human-built computer, this shard will inject Cyber's virus and she will find it. We need to trace that Bitcoin back and we can't wait to float a backchannel to a National Security Letter. Find out who was in that seat."

"Understood, ma'am. Anything else?"

Alex starts to unzip her jacket, pauses and zips it back up.

"If I haven't checked in this time tomorrow with my green code _and_ my false-red code, take command and contact Major Harper. Not the father, for fuck's sake. He's a CADMUS mole in the Army, I'm nearly positive. Write this down, hard copy."

Jameson flips open his notepad.

"Go."

"Major Emily Harper. Marines 2nd Recon, Force Recon, Able Company, Tombstone Team. You'll have to do some digging, she's probably in Libya shadowing SEAL Team Six right now. Take a cloaked ship and a full team. Get her in here, and she'll bring the Pentagon into alignment. I want her anyway and I've vetted and talked to her about this possibility. Then, off the books, tell Vasquez I'd like her to do the Cuban Milkshake project.

"While as your friend I do think they're hilarious, your gay-coded side missions really worry me, speaking as your director of intelligence. Ma'am. Since I'll be initiating it, what am I initiating?"

Alex shrugs.

"Shoot, grab, rip and blackbag raid on CIA headquarters to crack heads and find where I'm being held."

Jameson doesn't flinch. It's why she likes him. He's a white knight, pure and simple. Screw agencies, chain of command, funding. He has his people who are the good people and then there's bad people and their people. She needs a couple Paladins in this pit of Rogues and Barbarians like Vasquez.

She pulls out her personal phone, sets up her relay and dials.

_'What the it-fucking, shadow-licking, dust-chugging hell, Alex! Where were you?'_

"Kara," Alex groans, covering her ears against the superpowered shouting. "English, please. I have someone on speaker."

"Great! Tell my sister not to vanish into thin air after nearly getting killed. I was worried. I missed you. We missed nine chats, Alex. Nine," Kara croaks. "That's five breakfasts, four dinners where we didn't talk while we ate. The only ones since I was adopted."

Alex can't help it. Fuck commanding officer status. Kara cries, she cries.

"Can we meet? Maybe in the diner by the old reservoir?" Alex chokes.

"Nine seconds. Whoever the male is, I don't care if he knows. Nine seconds and excuuuuuse me if I dent the roof because I'm worried about the sister I love. Don't come to me, I'll find you. You're clearly not capable of following simple rules." 

"I'll be there."

Alex hangs up and she just shivers and shakes.

Alarms sound, the lighting goes red and the whole facility trembles. Jameson looks at his watch and then points at it. It was nine seconds on the dot.

Alex pushes her desk intercom button for Command. 

"Status."

"Dome shield took a _hit_ ma'am, but I don't think they were expecting it to be there at all. They backed off, just probing now. Little taps. Raw energy, pretty much, thermal with some UV and gradually increasing antiproton content. Crazy high precision. Generators are falling behind but it'd take ten hours to go down at this rate. Cameras aren't ready. Never meant to take that kinetic force and they're in self repair. _Skulds_ are on the rails, weapons charging and engines hot. Our mole in NORAD is retasking a Overlord bird to get us live feed. Orders?"

"Stay at orange. Hold our squadron in reserve. I have a hunch I know what just happened. Maybe we can smooth it over. Director Danvers out."

Jameson chuckles.

"She did say she'd dent the roof."

Alex scrubs her eyes with her fists.

"Go make sure we didn't take any damage, please? I'm already likely to get black bagged, rather not explain a wrecked facility to the Senators, too."

Jameson nods and stands up from the bookcase he was leaning on.

"Boss, be careful?" he pleads. "We don't exist and people who _do_ exist, like the CIA, want whoever knows an alien. You, they'd probably cut up in case alien autopsy worked on six degrees of separation logic."

"Always am," Alex sighs.

"Frisky brunette single moms notwithstanding," she tells her door after he leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vasquez left the Marines and went to the James T. Kirk Institute for Interplanetary Relations and majored in Female Studies (or studies of females).
> 
> Brunnehilde and Sigrun are names of Valykries that appear in Norse texts.
> 
>  _Semper Fi_ means 'always faithful' and is the US Marine Corp motto.  
>  _Semper Fricatrice_ means 'always tribbing'.  
> (OK, FINE! It uses _Fricatrice_ which appeared as a Latin word (crudely) referencing lesbian acts as early as 1605. It was the cruder version of _triabade_ , which was Greek-rooted. The modern sex term tribbing comes from _tribas_ , which is from Greek _tribein_ "to rub". So lesbians have a deep history, is the point. That and ancient Greeks were literal basards as well as being literally, sexist bastards.
> 
> Ain't Wikipedia grand?


	14. Tinker, Tailor, Super, Spy (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where childhood never really leaves us, sisterhood is painful and is forever, there are things more precious than duty and fools rush in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kara has had her suit made. She wanted to feel Winn out regarding her and his feelings for her, she noticed he was a stylish little scamp and she had 40 hours while robots -- ahem, Michaelson Bros. General Contractors -- rebuilt Cat's office.

**Kara Danvers**

"Hi! I'm Kara!"

Alex waves off some big, slightly fat guy pretending to read the newspaper. He reaches under his desk and pushes a button.

"Like in Agents of SHIELD!" Kara exclaims.

"Ma'am?"

"Confirmed. Joe, send us down. China Shop protocol."

"Hmph," Kara pouts. 

She hugs Alex again, to make sure she's real.

"You lose your family and start losing a second one and see if you don't knock things over looking for them."

"This is not what I mean, Kar. It's actually called that, it's in a filing cabinet and it wasn't written about you. Two congressmen from Tennesee got a little nosy. We really don't exist, just a money pipe coming in. Ended up hiring a secretly White Martian stripper in Vegas to mindwipe them and put something boring in their memories of here. Abandoned CIA drug farm, I think she said. We have to pay her for that...a lot," Alex admits.

"Well, you had a secret starbase in city reservoir," Kara reminds her. "I see why they'd wonder. I noticed the power draw when I first moved here and started poking around the electrical grid's computers. A decent cover story, by the way. The old model, failing gear too expensive to replace but useful, hence, facility open but high daily maintenance traffic. Good setup, too. I mean, I can _feel_ the," she snaps her fingers.

"Cherenkov radiation, you call it. On my skin. Coming off the warp excitation fluid. Little bleep-bloops of radiation going faster than light before they die."

The elevator door thunks shut behind them.

"Hmm," Kara muses. "you should probably get your people with my people. Clustering on the subliminal is too tight relative to the superliminals," she says, pointing at the _Sigruns._ "Way too tight if you want to mount a singularity cannon or fast-repeater railgun with anything but ferrous shells."

"What in the ass does that mean?" Alex groans.

"Kara, I am glad to see you, I love you. But I am hungover, a little, and I almost met an amazing woman _and her amazing kid who she trusted me_ with but she made me try and remember her name and I couldn't because I was drunk when she introduced herself. I want _her_ and I want to be _that kid's mom so bad_ and I'll probably never see her again. So, turn it from 'Science Guild' to 'doctor' please."

"Are you?" Kara asks, quietly "A doctor?"

"I promise, most of what you know about me is right. I did all that, it's where I go to work for 'Infectious Diseases' for the City Hall, that's my drop off. Anyone looks for paper, that's the end. Officially, I'm doing that, actually...this."

"Huh," Kara says. "Warladies call that the 'casting the last step'."

"Like Kryptonian generals?"

"Females, specifically, and female officers of any rank. But yeah, my mom's house, In-Ze, is full of them. House El is no slouch, third behind In-Ze and Zod. Casting the last step was the idea that if you're leaving footprints in the mud, you find sand, or water, or stone, and you put your torch to the last few muddy prints. Harden them into clay. Make the end of the trail obvious and cut it. They know you _were_ there and it's warm to the touch so they think it was made more recently and you can't have gotten far. So split up and they look. And look. And look."

Alex nudges her shoulder.

"That's pretty good. I like the suit, too."

"Winn made it. I think he's right that primary colors will look better in the air when I'm moving quickly."

"Winn?"

"Winn, IT guy at my new job. Action figure collector. Next desk over. Scruffy. Nice. Not gay, maybe bi. Crush on me but yet surprisingly non-pervy about me standing there full ass nude and being like 'here's the template fabric, here's me, you know human fashion, I don't so put it in the best places' so we could get the molds for the actual armor. This is the core layer. I'll break out the hard suit if I ever feel like it."

"And the skirt?"

"He called it psychological warfare."

"You killer," Alex teases, bumping against Kara.

It's good, giving Alex a hard time and getting one back. Kara thought something had _broken_ between them, not just stretched or gotten lost.

"I do have all this stuff," Kara reminds her. "Up here. The cast step metaphor I knew from stories but I have compressed memories in my brain, waiting on subconscious triggers. When you were missing, maybe hurt, and then you called this morning, a fuckton of military memories lit up. In seconds, they unlocked years of training in reflex, procedural memory and hand-eye memory. I could do new things with my heat vision, depending on how I strobed and focused it. I remembered in-flight combat moves I'd never actually done. I realized if I focus on just my speed, I can vibrate through walls. As I felt the shield, I realized I could go faster-than-light to just pass through but...hard shield and FTL do not play nice. The atmosphere is dense and I like Earth. Haven't tested that or the vibe thing but the memory of it is clear and I think it's a Martian-assisted memory lifting from Astra."

Alex seizes up.

"Do you know something about Astra, Alex?" Kara says, trying to sound _calm_ and not _murdery_ towards her sister who she would never hurt, no matter how pissed.

"I have less than half a hunch. It's _part_ of why I called when I did. Remember Indigo?"

"Yeah, as a kid, I didn't get it. But now? Looking back? They were totally a thing, her and Astra. Why?"

"That bomb, on my plane, has her calling card in the casing. Etched tracing of a Starhavenite feather. She used it when she was doing wet work for Colu or Krypton. If that person died and that was there, they were a fucker someone wanted gone _badly."_

"Was she trying to kill you? I really can't have my two lives trying to kill each other, my two families. She's my family, if she loved Astra."

"Good news is, nothing to do with me. The bomb couldn't have been much farther from my seat without being in the nose. It was meant to kill anyone in one specific part of the cabin and seemingly not even take down the plane. Bomb-maker overestimated our tech, assumed it would cascade back through the fuel line. Target was a few rows in first class."

"Who had those rows?"

"Paid for with cryptocurrency but between you and me, Lex Luthor."

Alex hands her the printout.

"L. Luthor," She says. "L, not Lex. Besides, he's in jail."

"Really having a day, Kar and of course I'd rather be at your loft, hugging and catching up and wishing Stacy knew clothes existed but I'm responsible for figuring out if Indigo is just being a brat or if she's bored and picking on anti-alien humans or worst case, something happened to Astra and a human did it in which case we are _screwed_ but I have to act like I can still save humanity _,_ or if it's option anything-fucking-else. What's two letters mean? Rich pricks do shit like that."

Kara sighs.

"Alex, I love ya, but you are being _so straight_ right now."

She holds out her phone and pulls up Twitter.

"Lena. Kieran. Luthor. The sexy, not criminal Luthor with geeky teardown videos and big, melty green eyes I want to _swim in_ and the shitty childhood and _wow!_ I have some real pussy flutterings about her tits in _that_ dress and ugh, _neck_. And unless I miss my mark..."

Kara zooms in on the photo.

"Blue Spanish Eyes and Asian Snake Lady there are exes. They hate each other, too, I think but they're closing in. They are going to drown random female employee who won the employee raffle to accompany the boss in the toilet before champagne."

"Lena's file is basically, 'she exists'. She's clean, Kara."

"Does _Indigo_ know that? Or is she thinking like I do, families and bloodlines working a _family_ mission, not an _individual_ one?"

"Fuck. Flip it to High House logic and you're right. Lillian is the matriarch, Lex is light hand, she's shadow hand. He's failed and she's up to bat. No way she has it. It's a paper file and nothing with voltage in it or conductive goes in or out of our archives. We read by chem-torches and take notes by hand. I'm not stupid."

The door behind them opens.

"Hi, I'm Kara. Nice to meet you."

"Vasquez. I work with Alex. Cuuuuute miniskirt, girl."

Alex has to turn and look to make it real. To make this nightmare real. It's Vasquez, back on duty because of the kerfuffle and kitted out, her hair slicked back down and her earpiece in.

"For fucks sake!" Alex shrieks. "Vasq! No. Down, shoo! Go away! Bad dykey! No biscuit!"

Kara gawks at the vitriol. Vasquez snickers. Alex shudders.

"Vasquez, Kara. Kara, meet our resident alienfucker and heartbreaker, and pain in my ass too useful to do more than tease about it. I have decided I am going to go scream at my office wall for a while. Noonan's, Kar?"

"Sure. One o'clock. Got something to do first."

"So. Alien, huh?" Vasquez says, sidling close. "You do go all the way up, don't you? I could do things to these arms. Mmm. Are you flexing or just...that hard?"

"If that's Sagittarian triplet I smell on you, you'd find me _pretty boring._ Fully analogous to humans. Better tits, but that's only subjective, except by default human male tastes. Eh, quite a number of females I've met as well. No neuroreflective fronds, definitely no detachable symbiotic neuroreflective fronds. Non-reversible, non-internally mobile vagina, the usual. Just the one clitoris, non-prehensile."

"Whoa-whoa-whoa!" Vasquez hollers. 

**Vasquez is shook. She is going to need a minute. That and some anatomical guidance.**

"Time out. Prehensile was a bit weird. We had a laugh. Need to know about this reversible business? Mobile? Sounds promising. What are fronds and how do they detach and where and how soon can I get them burrowed into my body? First things first. How _many_ did they not tell me how to find?"

Kara holds up four fingers.

"The obvious one in the usual place but there's five. Helical arrangement of three through the channel with a wide bundle at the back, more or less the entire walls of the egg chamber. Just one won't cut it, normally. Probably the only reason you got them off is that in the right condition and mental state they're basically a hand grenade set to 'orgasm'. Crazy dense wiring but relatively tough membrane. Feather-tickles don't count. Be the first human to learn all five and learn how to not cause seizures by rubbing too hard you're set for life, my friend. Those Saggi are the Swiss Army Knife of female things to fuck. Evolution was rough on their species, even into spaceflight so the females ended up being really good at getting, enjoying, and keeping mates of any remotely biocompatible species to keep numbers up. The camouflage neurocytes, multi-venomed fangs and the skinsacs are really just icing." 

"I knew...one tenth of that. Oh, my god. I've failed. I'm vanilla. I became that which I hate: a floundering pillow princess."

"I know," Kara replies, smiling and patting Vasquez's back. "There, there."

"Don't get me wrong, they're...amazing but I thought they were mostly cute and my size and springy when you squeeze and sort of slippery. I mean, I hope there's a rematch but knowing this, I wouldn't blame them."

"Hell no! If they agreed to fuck you, or hell, if more than one agreed _to be alone with you_ , that's a massive risk for them. Each of those sisters is one-third of their genetic survival plan and the galaxy has not been kind, overall. Sure, they're smart, sentient beings but so are humans. Humans act on reproductive lines most of the time. Typical career tracks, family, marriage, hell, parts of your religions? All wrapped around human females with their high fertility rate but difficulty to conceive difficult offspring to raise and possibly occluded paternity. Virginity? Marraige? Dowries? Like eighty percent of sexism. All about being sure it's _yours._ Saggis? All about defending and just being close to the nest. Hell, male or female, they can smell if they grabbed the wrong tyke from the daycare five paces off. Likeable, healthy, safe to be around? Spin the wheel of genetics? Roll the dice, cautiously, with one sister. Goes bad, brain link means they can kick your ass and bail her out. If it was the lot?"

Vasquez nods, dazed.

"Yeah. All three."

"They locked on. They're making a play. Probably your aggression is attractive. Seem like a good nest-guard and momma bear to them. Do whatever it takes to keep them," Kara growls to Vasquez. "I'll send you some of their old Kama Sutra type books but only if you name a half dozen after me."

Vasquez high fives her.

"Deal."

Kara counts on her fingers.

"How long's your biggest strap?"

"Uh, eight, why?"

"I mean, we were young but I'd say go up by at least two. Something spongy, not too hard but inflexible. With a core. She'd rather form down around it than have it flopping and reflex means you can't put it in at a bad angle long as you let her adjust. Get it in, let her relax and rehape. It'd feel sort of like wrapping your hands around hot chocolate, or something. No human frame of reference. Probably should custom order a Fathead, I'll shoot you a link. Meant for humans but the big ones spread out enough, I suppose. So that it's going to fill the egg chamber, not just the middle part. I can send you some impact-sensitive gel. It's like two part wax: one rubs on, then other one squirts in. Buzzes faster the harder ya slam it but doesn't pass through almost any of the impact. Saggittarian cantip, in my experience."

Alex is really, really white in the face now and Vasquez is lit up like Times Square and Kara needs some revenge so it's perfect.

"Weren't you thirteen when you came here?" Vasquez sputters.

'Weren't you a problem child at thirteen, Vasquez, or is that recent?"

"I was a thirteen-year-old girl with the sort of inherited money that really defeated the point of having a money-based economy. My school was more than half subliminal downloads when I slept, visitors in and out of the house all the time of lots of species. Long-term guests of house from all kinds of planets, staying for way longer than a stupid teenage relationship takes and yeah, some of them wanted to bag a High House bride. Sex work laws were different, and for that matter, age of consent was sort of 'eh' for nobles unless there was a generation worth of age difference, someone challenged it as inappropriate or we abused Rankless. Time, interest, options, at least some charm, I like to think, no worries about finding food. Home so cavernous and big that privacy was pretty much a guarantee. Always a soft place to sleep."

"Oh. Oh!" Vasquez chirps. 

"Ohh," she purrs. "I'm going to _like_ you. Friends?"

"Friends," Kara agrees. "Actually, I'm adopting. You're a Danvers sister now. We have shirts and stuff."

"When is the next fucking floor?" Alex groans.

"You're still here?" Vasquez chortles.

"Drop would kill me if I jumped..."

* * *

  
Poll: Should Kara have like, a YouTube channel on this sort of thing? A CatCo column? 

(I think Sex-Positive Supergirl getting hauled in by like, Senator Ted Cruz so he could make religious right noises at her would make for some lethal setups humor wise.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mean, Kara's an alienfucker too, just humans also count. And we were all pretty crazy at thirteen? Right? Just me?


	15. Tinker, Tailor, Super, Spy (Part 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where childhood never really leaves us, sisterhood is painful and is forever, there are things more precious than duty and fools rush in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comics canon Siobahn hits it off from the word go with Kara and they have a close call but never become enemies, even at her low point dealing with the Silver Banshee curse. She leaves the comics not defeated but going home to Ireland to contain the curse once and for all. In short, leaving on a quest as a hero. This is that Siobahn, blended with the snooty show version.

**Lexie DeWitt | Channel 92.1 (FM radio broadcast) | National City | 9:05am**

"Good morning, National City! Welcome to Morning Dish, where my friends at CatCo compile the tastiest tidbits, little vittles of news and slather it with the most creamy and purrfect gossip of the day. Before the break, we brought you what we're calling the Good, The Bad, and the Blonde chronicling supergirls morning constitu-flyst-her morning _patrol,_ we're calling it that. At 4:31am today, a time at which, I hasten to say, all decent, red-blooded earthlings are _asleep,_ the Maid of Might was breaking up a bar fight gone sideways, carrying a concussed mother and baby to the hospital, and busting a gun-running ring and back was back in bed by five. When interviewed by phone, she 'just stumbled upon' and she also joked 'super hearing is really handy' in that line of work. She also asked us to relay that yes, Waffle Trucks are welcome to offer her a discount if she saves them from a waffle truck-jacking but _no_ the Shimmy Gentlemen's club cannot offer her a free lap dance for walking one of its employees to their apartment. At the end of the hour, we'll gaze deep into our navels and decide if it's embarrassing, mortifying, or maybe kinda hot that she can hear everyone, in the entire city, at once, if she feels like it."

"We have an anonymous source inside CatCo headquarters, at the very moat of the Queen of All Media. What's up today, Karen 13?"

"Well, at the risk of getting fired and eaten by the Pink Panther herself, she's _behaving herself._ It's bizarre. She thanked the caterer. The only guy she snapped was the one who deleted half of our chief photographers' roughs for the day. She didn't even fire him. I mean, part of working here is if she doesn't make you jump off the building in your first two months, you can put 'tough bastard' on your resume. Help! How do I check for pod people?"

"We'll have to get back to you on that. What about you, Karen-22?"

"Well, same situation but I heard...I hea-"

"Oh [bleep], call you back!"

* * *

**Siobahn Smythe**

She has three hearts now, she's sure of it. No way one could beat this fast.

"Kara! Hi!"

"Phone, now," Kara tells her.

She isn't gay, she knows that but when Kara, in a little black dress and her deeply mean, cruelly silky hair done up in one big crest with a halo of steel chopsticks in it stands there, her long, firm, ghostly pale arm expectantly waiting for her to surrender her phone, she wouldn't mind a dance, maybe? Girls dance with each other, to practice, right?

"Why?"

"Because I know your voice, Karen-22."

Kara leans down.

"Bitch fucks me over, I memorize her. Just in case I ever get the chance."

"Phone!" she barks.

All around her, people jump, turn and stare, then turn away. The cute IT guy a desk over, good for a ride on the copy machine, at least, sighs and shakes his head and for some reason, it _bugs_ her that Winn is disappointed.

"Here."

"Thank you," Kara chirps.

She pulls out her own and snaps three pictures of the screen.

"Follow me, please."

She trails after Kara, really glad that her contract has a 30% buyout clause. Kara, ever the probably-gay gentlewoman, holds the door for her.

"Close the door, please, Kara."

Kara nods to Cat and pushes a button on her desk, her desk which is inside the glass because of course little miss special is the favorite.

The doors swing shut and something happens to the glass.

"Now," Kara says, rubbing her hands. "read this."

She holds out a piece of paper.

_What the actual..._

_No..._

_Oh, I am going to end Cat Grant..._

_I am not a who-_

"Who's he?" Siobahn gulps.

"Who?" Kara asks.

"The um, err, c'mere."

Kara leans in close, smirking.

"Tell me you see Michelango's David, but a ginger and with an actual dick, over there? Reading the _Tribune_ with a semi," Siobahn hisses.

Nothing but a tilt of the head.

"That's the Keurig, dear."

"No, that's the Keurig he's standing next to."

"You all right, dahling?"

"Jesus fuck!" Siobahn yelps, spinning around then spinning back.

There's an equally ginger, equally naked, equally _confusing_ woman behind her, sunning on a chair in the corner. She's tracing her three-scoops of vanilla breast, strawberry on top nipples with a lazy finger and there's blueberry syrup dripping down towards her navel and also _that pink slippery slice with freckles around it like brown sugar for fucks sake and_ it looks tasty and the woman is munching an _oh fuck_ that is a _Waffle Truck waffle._ Does that mean Kara...don't look at Kara _don't look at Kara, cool your vag, Siobahn, look somewhere fucking else for Morrigan's sake_ and Siobahn's pretty sure that's when she just loses. 

The battle, the war, whatever.

_Is my nemesis Supergirl?_

"There's...there's...two of them?"

She whips her head between the two apparently phantasmal and definitely tempting gingers. 

"You, me, and Cat, dear. You feeling all right? Maybe you should lie down, or go home?"

"No, no, uh-uh!" Siobahn snaps.

She storms towards Cat.

"I don't know what kind of sick game you are playing you musty-cunted old ha-"

Something firm and slightly pointy presses her into the couch.

"Down," Kara hisses. 

Kara, who managed to get her stilettoed foot on Siobahn's chest even though she was standing up, which would take a ladder and _oops, her glowing hair is flying up behind her now like the Sistine Chapel_ murals except angels don't pull this shit.

"Do not insult Kitty, in my presence. Clear? Yes, or no?"

"Yes."

Kara removes her foot.

"What do you want, Cat?" Siobhan demands.

Cat slides another slice of fruit between her lips.

"Well, I knew you were a backstabber before I hired you. Lois Lane implied as much. So really, I'm here to watch you squirm and eat fruit and oops!" 

Cat eats another.

"I'm all out of fruit. Zucchini are not fruit."

"Did you actually look at the contract?" Kara teases.

"I skimmed it."

"Uh-huh, sure. Bottom half of the page?"

"Um, Cat has me killed if I talk?"

Kara shakes her head.

"The agreement can be exited mutually _unless_ you talk and then the NDA clicks in, your contract is bought out, 100% and you are reassigned to CatCo Star City."

"Oh."

Kara's grin has more fang than she's used to _or does Supergirl just have really shiny pointy teeth?_ and she never did slog through the Twilight novels so maybe it's _a vampire thing_ and alien is the cover story because Kara is real shiny in the morning light.

"Last line?"

"No idea," Siobahn admits.

"So basically, you didn't get past 'agrees to conceal sexual activity in or around CatCo property, involving the below-named individuals, except in open public spaces' is that about right?"

"I'm not a whore!" Siobahn shouts.

Kara leans close.

"Oh, honey," she purrs, wetting Siobahn's cheek with her breath. "With whores, we don't need NDAs."

"What then?"

Cat stands up.

"I may be older than you but I have needs, as any woman does. Casting through various options, I realized that a mutually beneficial office affair was optimal. Escorts incur a legal risk, as you pointed out, and Tinder is not an option and at least in the office, some level of emotional intimacy would occur. Given my penchant for chewing through assistants, I felt that was an area for personal improvement. I needed to _bond_ wth my assistants instead," Cat says, nodding to Kar.

"With my _Lioness_ ," she exults, making it clear that it is a pet name that currently only applies to Kara but could, maybe, please God, extend to her?

"Now, obviously, for fairness' sake, it would not be something that happened to a pre-existing employee. That would be exploitative. Nor could the contract, or indeed the payment, revolve around performing such acts. Consent cannot be bought but silence...can. It would be a day one request, that could be declined then with a payout of six month's contract and a sterling recommendation. Ordinary work remains to be done and the fact that I hired two of you partially accounts for workload, partially ensures that a couple hours a day of _distraction_ doesn't prevent us from putting in sixteen useful hours work of work between the three of us. Once you're in," Cat says with a shrug.

"Comfortable, with more than a leading salary for your position and title..."

"...fucking the boss, rather, having the option, guilt and risk-free really isn't sleeping to get _ahead_ now is it? It's more like taking full advantage of the snack machine."

Kara hasn't moved. Technically, hasn't touched her except the shoe thing and she could probably defend that as defending Cat. Hasn't threatened or hit or made a fist.

She did miss breakfast. A waffle sounds lovely.

"A waffle sounds nice, to be honest."

_Crap, did I just say that out loud?_

Apparently because now there's a naked, freckled, _holy fuck those are nice tits_ redhead holding a syrup drizzled waffle out.

"Ah don't mind you eating out of mah hand, not one little bit."

"Uh-huh."

"What are their titles, office decorations?"

"Oh," the man in the corner says, rustling his paper. "We don't work here. Stace and I are just Kara's personal bodyguards."

"Doesn't work here...wait. Not an employee..."

Kara claps her hands and gestures to Siobahn.

"See that, see those dangerous, blood-soaked wheels in her head turning? That's why we need her. That, and she hates me. Constructive criticism never killed anyone."

"They're free game! Not employees, not part of the org chart, not on my report tree."

Siobahn pauses.

"I don't hate you I just...jealous, I suppose. I can't have looks and friends. I had to pick how to get ahead and I'm not much good with friends. You have looks and anyone who asks you for the time seems like your friend."

The redhead between her legs nods.

"Ah'm free game. A humble entrepreneur, internet shop. He does livestreamed fitness coaching."

_I'll just bet he does. Ooh, I can race them! See who can fuck me longer, or harder..._

"So ah just take customer questions and ah can really work from wherever. Here's nice. Besides, ah'm really good at making things worth it. May ah?"

Her hands are hovering, a good couple inches, from Siobhan's thighs.

Siobahn musters up the strength to nod.

A waffle is held out like a religious offering and pearly teeth catch the zipper of her skirt and just peel it down and she crunches into the waffle and the redhead doesn't miss a beat or move her hands, she digs into _her_ and maybe _lesbians are on to something_ and _how the fuck did she get those off with her tongue_ and there's a painful moment of nothing touching her and then _oh!_ and Siobahn is never betraying Kara, or Cat, not with a gun to her head.


	16. Red Blood, Blue Skies, Green Light (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where just seriously, never, ever, ever fuck with Lois Lane, that's like the suicide-by-cop of the DC Comics world and Lane needs a word with Little Danvers, Clark owes Kara, and there's a chess analogy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Trigger Warning: References to Period Sex**
> 
> **CANON DIVERGENCE:**  
>  Canonically, this is how both Kara and Clark shave (legs, chin, whatever) meaning the idea that Kara would be a newbie at heat vision in her first days as Supergirl is ridiculous. She would be very good at precise control of aim and power levels. She needed Caitlin's help because she can't see the back so that needed to be cut, not lasered.

**Cat Grant**

Thank God finally found a sex thing she can do to Kara and thank God just the offer made Kara not care about being mid-cycle and it's good for her too and she forgot she was due and that's why her feet are braced on one end of the tub and her back on the other, calves burning with exertion and both Kara's blood and her juices splashed on her and she's pretty sure _into her_ for that matter. There's too much oxytocin in her brain from the orgasms for first-day period cramps to register yet and Kara has period chocolate which Stacy recommended so highly Cat wonders if she can operate heavy machinery this week.

Kara's condo is large, three incomes and a bedroom and small office for each, aided by the fact that Kara is magic and can distill gold from lead and chrome. It's functional, not palatial, and the kitchen is curiously fancy for a girl with a bookcase of takeout menus, so the bathroom is enough. Comfortably enough. No double size Jacuzzi, the built-in sound system Stacy installed and not a custom job by Dre. At home, with nothing to squeeze between, Cat would slide down and break _everything_ in her own shower and she's much more attached to her hip-bones, emotionally speaking, know that they can do _that_ to her Lioness. Hiding her face in her arm and little, soft gasps leaving her long throat followed by a roaring cry of _Cat!_ and a slump backwards.

Kara knocks.

"Come in, just don't join me."

Kara comes in with red-stained sheets, a messy ponytail and a smile. Cat's faintly bloody juice is splashed on her, thighs to navel and it's still wet for some reason, not a bit clotted because of course she discovers some new sex magic every time she looks are her lioness.

"I do love the sight of a bedraggled stray Kitty in my shower."

She pushes the sheets into a rubber-sealed _laundry hamper with a cooling fan?_ splashes in some cleaner that smells like _fuck, that's the cinnamon_ and it's her _skin_ _that's cocoa butter_ and turns a knob. Cat's soggy, dripping, now-crimson panties, she just holds up and vaporizes with heat vision. 

"Underwear is now a privilege for you Cat, not a right," Kara tells her, that even, steel tone in her voice. The flatter affect is like a knights whetstone ringing down a blade, steady and smooth and casting sparks low in Cat's belly, meant to keep something sharp and ready to _cut._

"We'll talk about your decorations and your markings when you're more comfortable."

She steps back and turns to the mirror.

"House crest, you said?"

Cat blushes.

"The outline. But don't change the length. Actually, let it grow. Armpits, little patches."

"Legs?"

"Like how smooth they are on my clit."

Kara's tongue peeks through her lip, adorably and her heat vision flares, red and hot and it bounces off the mirror and another one in Kara's hand _no fucking wonder_ that girl is so smooth, because she lasers her pubes in five slow, confident stripes. Anyone who sees that patch already knows she's Supergirl and let's be real, several blondes have already shaved that in just as a bedroom surprise. Then Kara lifts her arm and does the same again, holding her breasts back and letting the pattern be messy. When she lets go, her breasts rise, like cheesecake in the oven until her broad, domed nipples are pointed just north of horizontal like two teaspoonfuls of raspberry gelato. Then, the hair lengthens like the heat stimulated it and it now glows, far fainter than her mane but _still_ and that'll be useful when the lights are off.

This shower doesn't actually have a 'cold shower' setting Cat decides, cranking the dial. It's a vicious lie.

"Oof," Kara grunts, cupping delicate skin that is orange like melted iron with the heat and just absorbed energy that boiled an armored truck to steam and left its driver skidding along in his severed seat.

"S'warm," she explains. "S'nice..."

Steam rises between her fingers, the quantity increasing when Kara's breath gets heavy and shuddering.

"Sexy, you watching me like that."

"Kara, I...I can't deal with that, mentally. I cannot conceptually, handled the train of thought that causes right now. Breakfast, okay?"

Kara blows her a kiss and walks out. Hips rocking like a ship on calm seas, left, right, left, right. Lifting her hair up as far as her arms can take it and fluffing it then letting it drop, bouncy and teasing, spilling down her bare skin to swish-swish-swish the backs of her thighs.

_Hips like a metronome, arms up high, twisting like the shimmy-shake, hair is lemon candy._

Cat has no fucking idea why it came into her head like that _but_ she owes Beyonce for that exclusive and now she has the best line for the newly bi, newly divorced, newly _buff,_ newly _nerdy_ singer to unleash upon an unsuspecting world to reinvent herself. Jay-Z's inability to mind his business with his dick just did queer women of color a massive favor and after this month's issue, they'll know it. Shimmy shake will date Cat but surely there's some other twisty, half random dance move since? She wouldn't know. No one's wanted their hands on _her_ hips since the last day of the Vietnam War and she was eight and it was Susie Connelly and it was after bedtime and they dissolved into stupid little-girl giggles.

There's a knock on the front door, chatter outside and someone opens the door without knocking.

"Lois, do not dare ope-"

It's Lois with messy hair and rumpled clothes and a bathrobe-clad, tomato-cheeked Kara trailing uselessly behind her. Because the universe owed Cat a merciless kick in the box after she proved a savant at tribbing. Worse, it's _wine-drunk_ Lois Lane which is her most powerful physical form. She has messy, glassy eyes and that slightly manic look when she has a story but it's in her head.

"Hey there, Kitty. Nice red wings, there. Compliments to your stylist and your surgeon. I'm just going to pee and wait for you in the kitchen."

It's not the first time Lois was on the toilet with Cat in the shower, they ditched their roommates for a squatted-in warehouse when they were not even Kara's age at Radcliffe.

"Sorry for the scare, Kitty. That hers? It's got that shiny, goopier look."

Lois glances at the smear of blood between Cat's thighs. Cat nods because the universe isn't letting her die.

"Keep that right where it is, whatever you do. In the cork sense, not the tampon sense. You'll thank me later."

_Weird, but Lois Lane is not wrong, except in her whitebreadiosexual tendency._

Lois pauses with her hand on the doorknob.

"Kitty?"

"Yeah?"

"Congrats and bless you for doing this. Kara...she's a special case. She needed someone challenging, someone wife-level, and someone big and complex and strong enough for all of who she is, alien, little brat of an empress, sex fiend, PTSD survivor, heated drying rack for a ginger manaic's pussy, and freshly-ejected coed and thus, poor dear, someone expected to be an adult."

"I'm not special, not _Kara_ special."

"Ask her about what an eligible bachelorette Stakina-Vex was, back home. How eligible she was, and why. Then get back to me."

Lois leaves and locks the door, bless her.

"Well," Cat tells the showerhead. "Fuck."

=====

Cat manages to look like a semi-human woman, if not a respectable one, before she faces Lois.

"Hi, Kitty." She says before sliding Cat a coffee.

"Hi, Bitch."

Lois sips her own.

"So, now do you believe me about fucking a Kryptonian?"

"Lois!" Kara squawks.

"I"m not following," Siobahn groans, holding one icepack to her neck and one between her legs. Apparently, wiping her chin clean of Stacy is beyond her current capabilities. "I'm not following and I like it."

Lois smirks.

"It's like, I should like, rent him to make babies so that no human woman ever has to bother with a human man again. Because I didn't know men _could_ find the clitoris and now I wonder how they _can't_ and I don't know who decided vaginal orgasms weren't a thing because if he knows _middle school geometry_ , and knows what _speed_ and _depth_ are and has working ears..."

Kara's head is in between her hands, ears covered.

"I did this to Alex yesterday!" She shouts. "Probably deserve to hear about my cousin's sex life!"

"Cousin?" Cat shouts back.

"Oh, _thaqo,"_ Kara groans, uncovering her ears.

"Yeah. Cousin."

"So Clark..."

Lois rubs her neck, making a bit of her pale red hair wiggle.

"Is Superman, yeah."

"How long have you known?"

"Since sixth date. He's upfront about things. There is a reason I love the uncultured lump, Cat. Metropolis men play games. Clark...he...he... _gardens_. Sets things up so that my feelings and his line up when we're ready to finish the argument."

"Hah," Cat mocks. "Hah! I knew there was a non-human presence in Kansas _nine years ago_ and I could have just sent someone down to poke it but I didn't want to fire off a Weekly World News lookalike. I scooped you, Lane. Fucking finally."

Lois nods.

"But I had midair sex first so I win."

"Rao's balls," Kara groans. "Someone shoot me."

=====

Kara and Lois get on, Cat learns. Better than Lois and Cat herself do, even. 

They get on like two hydrogen atoms, crashing and hugging and messy and energetic and city-destroying and powerful. Because soon they're on the roof, Lois has slipped alien-grade Everclear into Kara's hard lemonade and she's scaring the shit out of littering businessmen in Tokyo using heat vision, a reflection she can somehow detect on the fucking moon even drunk off her ass and a mirrored panel on a derelict spy satellite Russia powered down in the seventies for the bank shots.

Kara sort of melts onto Cat.

"I shot all ten wrappers. In Tohk-mmm-Took-you're soft-Thy- _Tokyo_."

"I"m very impressed."

"She's pretty," Kara mumbles, tapping Cat's nose. "Gor," she stumbles. "Rhadi," she hiccups. "Resph. Shexy. Want one."

Cat leans in to Lois.

"Two bottles. This week. A case, ASAP."

"Aww, you like?"

"Drunk, cuddly, stupid, needy, _subby_ Kara? Yes, you idiot, I like."

Kara pauses, big-eyed and wobbly and there's something messy and just morally _wrong_ she wants to do to Cat and she's worrying her lemonade-moistened lip with her teeth and Cat can go a _few weeks in a wheelchair while her pelvis knits, the building is fully accessible_ and then she asks Lois a question and Cat's broken form the spell.

"Not that I'm-hic!-not glad, but why are you here?"

"Got kidnapped," Lois sighs.

"What?" Stacy squeaks, pawing and lifting Lois' arms and patting her ribs and checking her neck for who knows.

"It's fine. It's my trademark journalist's move. If someone kidnaps a journalist and doesn't kill her? They have a story they want out. Hell, at this point I think the bad guys would after the other if I got hurt because 'hey, that's MY conduit to western audiences, you ass' so it kind of balances."

"Dropped off on 9th and Crane. They found a soft spot. Usually, it's just boink! A boot in then butt at ten miles and hour out of the van onto concrete. Clark likes me to lay low until he can come get me and makes love like he needs to have me inside his skin to know I'm real and he cooks anything I ask for like a month after and pampers me until I go bonkers and tell him to stop. So, I lay low."

"Who," Kara asks, gazing up at the cloudless sky.

"Astra," Lois replies. "She says hi, she worries about you, and she wants you to have this."

Lois reaches into her coat and pulls out either a bespoke dildo or a computer because it's cylindrical and smooth and made of something much like glass has only two buttons.

"She kept it," Kara murmurs, quieter and more alert now. "Our old spy beacon. Antique military gear," she explains. 

"She got it for my ninth birthday so that wherever she was, she could write me, no matter the theater's radio silence because I had the other one. Didn't matter if it was on the other side of the universe. Quantum entanglement. I told her to keep both when she was imprisoned, give it back to me when her sentence was up."

"She's alive and...she forgives me?" Kara asks.

Lois nods.

"Of course she does, Kara."

Kara breaks to bits, she sags, and Lois and Cat race each other to catch her.

The beacon pulses, soft and blue, in the night.

"You've got mail," Lois tells Kara, kissing her temple.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have some strong feelings about Astra, Kara, Alex, and bad writing, let me tell you.


	17. Red Blood, Blue Skies, Green Light (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where just seriously, never, ever, ever fuck with Lois Lane, that's like the suicide-by-cop of the DC Comics world and Lane needs a word with Little Danvers, Clark owes Kara, and there's a chess analogy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm embellishing on the biology here but it's not impossible, as long as there's something to create a food chain. We don't know, full stop. I used radiothermic bacteria because they happen in South African diamond mines (the deepest ones) and they eat radiation like plants eat sunlight. In an ice-encased lake, thermal heat vents like the ocean floor weren't an option... Maybe, just maybe, if the conditions changed slowly enough, they formed a base to replace the phytoplankton before the last complex animals (fish, shrimp, worms) starved.
> 
> A parsec is 3.3 light-years and a mark (Kryptonian unit) is 5 seconds so 1 parsec/mark projectile travels, in human terms, forty light years a minute. It would hit a target in Alpha Centuari in two seconds, similar to the time it takes a sniper bullet to travel a half a mile.

**Astra In-Ze**

Night by night, for nine rotations now, Astra has watched this rock, the one they call _Earth,_ but only because earth means _soil_ and they've never bothered to name it. Watches it rot and bloom in the same instant. A race that knows no competition but each other hurdles towards mutual suicide while a hundred scavenger empires and hive mind parasites and all other terrors salivate in the cold gaps in the stars for the corpse.

An ocean crosses an acidity threshold and the next morning there's devastation that can never be turned back, Krypton proves that. Because a man in the most powerful nation, of the most advantageous skin color, who already had the most money, needed to save a quarter-of-a-percent growth rate on one part of his fortune. Sickening.

Onshore, a white elephant is born. The same _animal,_ only a different _shade_ and no one really profits, perhaps the herder is given twice the usual. Yet a monarch preens, his tyrant generals shiver, fearing he can no longer be puppeted and a nation explodes in joy. It amuses her.

On the big continent, the wild one of a thousand peoples, tribes and languages, the one that forged the humans from half-animals, in the grasslands it doesn't rain for two days in a row. The elders know without thinking it is the _dry season_ now and fourteen old women, black backs bent and wiry hair long since white, instruct just-bleeding girls on how to dry the meat and the root vegetables and how to watch for snakes when they sleep because they enter the village when food is scarce in the grass. They choose for them husbands who are not _too rough_ and who can _get lots of food_ and tell their married daughters to be sure and get enough food and water for their fast-swelling bellies. This, she respects. This is Krypton when it was queens who ruled, Krypton as Vakatiliyn herself knew it.

A few thousand steps away, two days hike even for a fat human, in the same nation as the women with nothing but hand knit and hand cooked and hand braided, a girl snatches wrecked electronics to resell for parts in a booming city on the continent all others think 'primitive' but Astra knows is closer to the mad pace, slipshod design and wild advancement in jury-rigged circuits and machines of ancient Argo. Lagos has the reckless growth of a future city-state, not the ones they call New York and Tokyo.

Tomorrow, or an hour from now, she will see a whole new slew of things.

Astra is fond of Earth, she admits. 

She was fond of Krypton too. That carried her aching limbs forward towards Desaad and the boom tube, negation matrix in her bloody hand and her sidearm high and steady. He might kill her, he might not. He had killed more than a few of her army. He knew and she knew that he stood on _her_ soil and three more steps she would be on him and dead or alive she and the bomb, would be on his soil. He abandoned Krypton's dead seas before she could flick a switch and with her dying breath rip Apokolpsis from the universe along with herself.

Soldiers were not just trained back home, they were bred, woven from the first click of molecules in their DNA to be exemplary. The rankless selected were so selected because they had pedigrees of loyalty ti friends, quick fists, and yes, had butchery and innocent screams and shallow unmarked graves detected in the echos in their bloodlines. 

Noble birth did not spare Astra this programming, it means that soldier was just was one of many things she was born for, then the one she encouraged.

A soldier must be fond. Blood is visceral, painful, obvious. Losing too much of it kills. Soil is not blood. Borders are lines on paper and nations are words and stories made by counting those lines. So for a soldier to die for a border or a nation? He must in his head know it is soil and in his bones must love that soil and on the people on it. It must be his soil, his _Earth_ and she supposes that is how humans created the name.

Deserters are not cowards, she knows, or not _only_ cowards. They are realists. Their lives are definite and obvious to them while their cause is abstract at best, lies at worst. Astra has not often been tempted to the desert, but any soldier who claimed to be faultlessly loyal is worse than one who is faltering. They're a liar.

"I like it up here too," someone says beside her. 

"Hello, little one."

"I do adore watching them. Anywhere above eight thousand and I can't hear them. There! Someone just kissed for the first time. That old one is dancing because her late husband liked that song, she just told her daughter."

Kara floats closer. Her flying posture is what Astra trained her on, knife-shaped. Arms folded, feet and legs locked together. Easy to accelerate away, easy to pivot, easy to dive with the feet, with the strong bones, straight into a target. 

Why her moron nephew flies around fists out with his fingerbones exposed on the leading edge, she will never know.

"I did not know Fort Rozz came here," Kara admits. "My sister, my human sister? I am terribly fond of her. The sister I never had, in every sense. But she has secrets I've only scratched. Perhaps she knew, perhaps not. Hurts either way."

Astra nods.

"I escaped when the shell was still hot, with Crimson Sunrise behind me. Indigo followed after rigging fail-deadly viruses in the computers and traps throughout the ship. We didn't want them regrouping there."

"How is she? You love her."

"Better. Worse. Both," Astra admits. "Indigo is never well and never whole just like she is never less than playful, or funny, or brilliant."

Kara hums.

"Mine is like that."

"Which?" Astra jokes. "My spies have seen more humans flocking to your bed than _josqoak_ swarm to overripe fruit!"

"The new one, Cat. Perhaps, under a different sun she could be a wife for me," Kara sighs, glancing at pale, bright, too-gentle Sol.

Energizing and uplifting to their bodies and making them unbreakable but in no way is it comforting or charming as Rao. They will know no challenge to their survival under its light, unless they provoke invaders from outside.

"She has a son and she adores him and every other thing in her life has been awful. She snarls and disdains others because if they approach, they'll see her emotional cracks. Her husbands deserve their guts being pulled out through their throats. But," Kara sighs.

"...the most awful of husbands can bring the most lovely sons," Astra fills in. "Nimda. Your grandmother's diary."

Kara nods.

"LIke Nimda said, the womb always purifies," she reminds her aunt. "Always. Mine will, I have faith. Yours, if you wish."

Astra laughs, hard and sudden. Like a cannon's blast.

"That way is gone, little one. Zod's sloppiness saw to that and Kal-El did not have the brains to stop him or even know what he lost. The other way? Hah! You overestimate my men's worth _slightly_ , little one, and _vastly_ overestimate my interest in having a slimy mess oozing between my legs."

Kara smiles, again.

"Not that. Follow me," Kara suggests. "If you're not afraid... _soldier_."

She moves north, then turns with a laugh.

"To the other pole!" she cries before soaring so high so quick, that there's no air to carry Astra's reply.

_Always trouble._

=====

"Why are we here?" Astra shouts.

If the North Pole where Kal-El keeps his toys is a wild animal, the South Pole is a _predator_. There the cold can kill the unready fast but here it can kill faster than the victim can be warmed back up. Here the ice doesn't just cap the top of an ocean, it does that _and_ it presses a continent down as far as the highest mountains elsewhere thrust up.

Antarctica is unpleasant to Astra.

"Penguins!" Kara shouts back.

"What?"

"The birds," She says, pointing at a black, yellow and white sea of smooth-feathered, flightless lumps. "They're cute! Make me laugh! Mate for life! It's romantic!"

She beckons to Astra to follow and with a sigh, Astra does.

Moving past the magnetic pole, Kara spikes up, into the suborbital space and Astra follows. She knows a follow-on signal when she sees one and she'd be lying if she said she'd never dreamed of her niece flying and fighting on her right hand for House In-Ze and Krypton until she outranked Astra and took the left-hand slot.

They plunge, straight down and before they impact, Kara flicks her hand out in signal and together, they let loose a blast of heat vision. The ice melts and niece and aunt blast through. White and razor-sharp and cracking, smashing and jumbling around them, enough to knick the more basic fabrics of Kara's ridiculous costume and bruise her face.

Then, _water_ surrounds Astra and she drifts to a stop, stunned, weightless.

Kara hands her a comm tablet and starts typing.

[Lake Vostok. Locked in from above and below. Isolated for twenty-three million earthy years, by my math. A world no humans have never seen. They think they've drilled into it but only into the upper chambers, not these. An ecosystem separate from all the others, in each chamber. Most never interlock. They know there's life...]

A strange, jelly-skinned worm flickers out and snags a bit of floating debris and then stills, having used up precious heat.

It's dark but not _black_. Astra realizes that the light coming off the algae is because they're radiothermic. A few kilometers difference puts them close enough to the Earths' core, just enough extra radiation to replace the sun's light as a base food source.

A nearly transparent fish almost crashes into Astra and lazily moves away. She paddles back in surprise. It's massive and loose and mostly just skin with some gauzy muscles woven through and it's flat as Kara's cape but it has teeth and visible brain matter and jointed bones.

[But not how much! I call that the cellophane shark. Apex predator, down here. When I came here, I contaminated it. Surface bacteria on the ship from the first impact. Faster burning, more fatty content. They ruined what was here before but they depended on sunlight so the locals won in the end. Tougher local microbe species survived and took some cellular traits and _those_ were the size of my finger, not the size of me not because of genetics but because there wasn't enough food. The radioplankton are ten times as big now and fifty times as nutritious and they're the baseline. The bacteria fattened and everything built on top swelled. When I seal it up, I will leave some uncased omegahedrons set on slow-decay. Keep radiation plentiful here.]

[It's miraculous, little one. Like your own secret garden.]

Kara rolls over and swims away, lazily, kicking her feet not because she has to do so to move but because she wants to, wants to experience it like the animals here do.

[I know. I destroyed and I created at once. It's sad.]

Kara turns off her tablet and points.

Sprawling ahead, far past the lake's rim, separated from the precious hidden sea by shield generators is an Argo's Star. A military design, Kara's father and Astra were the project leads. A deep-space city, a few dozen of which were was designed to replace nearly a thousand of the old robotic outposts. Living quarters for millions, a new breed of long-range weapons that can fly parsecs in a mark and strike pirates, slavers raiders and from the sky of a newborn colony like Rao's steady wrath. 

These were to be the fortresses that guarded the Kryptonian people as they fled their dying world to countless others. Not one was never constructed. Until Kara came to Earth and set a tiny ship's maintenance systems to gnawing at the Earth's crust.

At two out of hundreds of docks are docked a nearly-fitted _Sunblade_ class superdreadnought and an old Imperial ship. 

Colony or scout ship, Astra isn't sure. 

As they approach, lights flick on and inside the operations deck, automatons move and orient their sensors and the anti-boarding turrets in the hallways acquire, track, and then release them.

The scout ship -- it has the seeker glyph in old Kandoori - lights up and the upper airlock opens as they approach.

Kara sighs and smiles and shakes her hair, her _father's_ trademark too-yellow, too-thick hair, out and then wrings the strands of the rest of the slightly briny water.

"Ship, I'm back. Prepare to add co-commander."

"Preparing. Please place a hand on the scanner."

Kara nods.

"I programmed it. The government that convicted you is gone."

Astra lowers her hand, nervous that Kara's overrides didn't take.

"Warlady alleles detected. House In-Ze. Welcome. You are?"

"Astra In-Ze, rank General, Republican Guard."

"Ahem!" Kara coughs.

"Ship, override and overwrite with following. She is Astra In-Ze, Starfarer, Imperial Navy of Krypton, commander of the _Flamebird_ , First Fleet. The flagship to be commissioned next rotation. Promote her and log it in the chronicle."

"Kara!" Astra exclaims.

"No one more deserving," she offers with a shrug, as if reviving an eons-dead rank and a royal seat given only to generals and declaring anew a grand empire lost to fanatics, mistakes and traitors was no more than shaking algal slime from her hands.

"Ship, status of our guest?"

"The human female is...tiresome but healthy. Several minor diet-related morbidities eliminated. Despite trying to mimic her home terrain and simulate the plant life which is mostly what she called 'peat' and 'moss' and even remotely mapping something called a 'thistle flower' for cloning, I have been called a 'nasty tinned cunt' one hundred and eighteen thousand, four hundred and eleven times in exactly that combination. The male infant is now one-third to one-fifth mature judging by cultural, physical and linguistic cues. He or she is displaying traits of genetic and mental divergence with regard to his or her gender. Orders?"

"Explain treatment options to the mother. Extrapolate suitable human educational content from their transmissions. He should be educated. Improve their diet and housing, if not already sufficient. Inquire if a cloned mate or mates brought up to similar age from adapted and diversified embryos would appeal to her or her offspring. Post updates once per lunar cycle."

"Little one..."

"What?" Kara asks. "I crashed into her looking for help for Lyta. Shattered her legs. Broke mine before the yellow sun took effect. She was pregnant and I brought her here. I admit, at the time, I was so mad I brought her only to see if she had organs or stem cells that could help. Lyta died so fast, the machine never scanned the human. I held no ill will. But it's not like I can let her leave, having seen what we're capable of. Had the rear zoological deck setup for her exclusive use."

"What's her name?"

Kara who had been tossing her hair into a loose knot, goes still.

"How should I know? I never saw her after I had the attendants take her for scanning. Does it matter?"

Astra snorts.

"Little one, you are _strange_."

"I am, but I have something for you. A gift."

=====

"Kara," Astra murmurs, running her fingers around one of the matrix's shells. 

"Functional?"

"Mmm-hmm. One of three pools that can operate parallel, or two in bursts, one solely for amino acid and biomaterial recharge. Hundred thousand embryos ready to seed, self-sustaining replacement after. Dormitories for a full generation. Complete liminal education suite post-birth, though the Imperial Era Zev-8 type harnesses. Had to smash the old computer physically as a precaution and drop in a black-market unit. Coluan, so for a stolen design, well-executed. Wired it and hand-coded the programming to prevent it from churning out more of the fanatics who hijacked this ship. It's still only wired for one-sixth of a modern dream engine's throughput. The corvette I brought had upgrades, but not for that."

Astra laughs, peeking at Kara from behind one of these fluid filled fronds and glassy baubles that could become her daughter or her son, or her neutral, or for that matter a child to anyone.

"What are you hiding, little one? Where are my nieces and nephews? Hmm?"

Kara walks over the podium and lifts the security panel.

"Genetic core. Codex, we call it now. It's missing. Removed before launch or stolen during the mutiny that crashed it, maybe."

"Oh, little one..." Astra sighs. "It's not your fault."

"Isn't it? One finger, Astra, one! One stroke of my finger on this panel and I can bring back my people. Not the same people, but _our_ people and better for the hard lesson. But for one _tahoqing_ part in a machine! I repaired this _entire ship,"_ she shouts. "Before I washed my hands of my lover's blood because maybe, just maybe...this ship could clone a brain-compatible replacement body for her. I had lost everything. Of course, I couldn't. Of course, the only one part I can't _make_ is the one I don't have!"

Kara kicks the pedestal, the metal of which she must have upgraded out of utter spite because she ends up on her back. She winces and starts favoring that foot when she stands.

"And reverse seeding takes hundreds of individuals if none are related, if we let it calculate for millennia," Astra sighs. 

"Three of my squad leaders have links to your or my houses, though not enough to be incompatible. But we have no fewer than nine blood kin total, the Tyssal sisters plus two Rankless brothers. We are thirty-four, thirty-five if we count that two-legged horse you insist is Kal-El. "

"Astra!" Kara pouts, hands on hips and her smile quick and total and bright. She looks so, so, so much like her mother. How could Astra hate Alura, even as she pronounced sentence? 

Astra was the dour one and the older twin, after all, not Alura. She had to be strong then so Alura could break when she told Kara.

"You look like your mother when you do that," Astra teases. "Exactly like her, but with brighter hair."

Kara scoffs.

"My Earth mother actually does the same thing, but only when very angry."

"Earth mother?"

"Hmm? Oh, yes. Earth mother and Earth sister, who adopted me here. Space father, space mother, Alura and Jor-El. Kept it simple when I explained to my sister. Space aunt, who I now have back."

Kara's shoulders square.

"I won't let you kill the humans, Astra. There's good in them. Truly. Tremendous virtue hidden in all the hunger and infighting. We uplifted species far baser than humans and did so gladly and both we and they were ennobled by doing so. Humans? More than enough of us in them to save them, with a firm and motherly lead."

Astra sighs.

"If you defend them, not only could I not bring myself to harm you or even allow my soldiers to _think_ it, I doubt I'd win. In a duel, I now must wonder...you or I, niece of mine? There's a fire in you, now that you're grown. And of that, I couldn't be prouder. You have the trust and love of last Old God and her endless sisters, no doubt. The undersea kingdom, only a hair weaker than the sisterhood, and those empires plus a few men threw back Apokolips with wave tactics, spears and swords."

Kara nods.

"Diana would as I would for her. And I don't want to fight you, either."

"Always nice to hear."

"What then?"

"You know my lovers, the ones you had _spied_ on?" Kara teases.

"The ones who you have somehow fully concealed the names of from my Martians _and_ Indigo? No small ruse. What of them, the humans?"

"The younger two, the pale ones? Eighty-nine percent Kryptonianized DNA, for the male. Ninety-eight, for the female. Period blood transfusions. The process accelerates hugely at a point but I haven't nailed down when or what triggers it."

"Remarkable. So...those cries I heard in Metropolis? Those babes were yours?"

"Kal's. His little boy. Named after his grandfather Jonathan, as firstborns are in that family. Not so different, Kansas and Argo."

"But Kal's chosen is human."

"Apparently not! Under a yellow sun, the embryo would have killed Lois in days, just from the caloric draw. I warned her this, before te dope got any funny ideas. Once I saw proof of changes in mine, I talked to Lois. During the forms of intercourse like she engages in, tiny quantities of blood pass back and forth. Each time. In humans, it can carry disease but also, well, blood. I encouraged her to increase her experiment duration and sample size, if you will and monitor her body. Told her how to tell when she was durable enough. At some point, she and Kal--Clark, I call him Clark since he asks it of me--decided to try for a child."

"She knows it will have powers, yes? Some at birth, all by the time it speaks?"

"I'm more worried about _Lois_ having powers, to be quite honest. Imagine if Shakonna-Dem-Vex was the head of the Order of the Vish and rather than sentences and rehabilitation she wrote her judgments out, shamed on the datastream for all to see."

"Vhoc's hole!" Astra laughs. "That _would_ be a formidable woman."

"That's Lois when she's not cranky. That's good day Lois. Then there's pissy Lois. Or drunk Lois. Or worse, girls night, totally _smashed_ Lois at the club. Darkseid would tremble."

"Hmm. So not genocide, then."

Kara smiles.

"I knew you'd come around. So, aunt mine, wherever should we find the next thousand human volunteers for hybridization? I won't be sharing mine."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clark really has no idea how bad it is going to get for him, does he?


	18. Red Blood, Blue Skies, Green Light (Part 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where just seriously, never, ever, ever fuck with Lois Lane, that's like the suicide-by-cop of the DC Comics world and Lois Lane needs a word with Little Danvers, Clark owes Kara, and there's a chess analogy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kryptonian is OSV (object verb subject) unlike English SOV (subject-object-verb).
> 
> The easiest analogy is Yoda. 'Begun, these clone wars have.' not 'These clone wars have begun.'
> 
> Fun, probably partly wrong.

**Lois Lane | Metropolis | 33rd and Baker | Apt 9B**

  
Jonathan's air raid siren wail is the first thing she hears and it slices Lois like a knife in her own brain. 

"Mom's coming," she huffs. "Mom's going to make you wear pumps as part of the dress code so you know better when you're big..."

Her high heels aren't uncomfortable because they hurt her. It's because they slow her down. She hadn't really believed her co-workers with children -- words could not explain this -- until he wailed and wailed and she couldn't make him stop and it was worse than finding Kitty in Gotham General, a thousand times worse. Worse than finding her father was a murdering bigot. Worse than the time in Sudan when she almost shattered her femur.

She was a mom and moms take the pain away and into them and they suffer so the little one won't and for the first time since he was placed in her arms, sticky and wailing, she couldn't do that.

_'I'll dump you if you tell anyone I'm bawling, Smallville.'_

Clark smiled that smile that tells her he knows and he also knows exactly how to sidestep her wrath and grow one of those crazy window-basket bouquets or cook a recipe from Mama Lane that she's sure her father had locked up in a black site until Lucy snuck it out.

_'He's quiet, love.'_

_'Oh, come on! You? I've been bouncing him for hours.'_

_'I couldn't hear him, not even at the door. His ma sat with him and she cared and it made him calm down.'_

Lois hadn't realized. The relief she felt in her every pore had made her unaware of the why of it, her son in her arms, snoring softly, playing with a button on her blouse.

_'Oh Clark, you ass! You, let me go on.'_

_'I have to get a few in, love.'_

He popped out that scanner that Kara gave him that she trusts more than the entire American Pediatric Association. Ear infection. Ten minutes call to Kara and a transmat flash in the kitchen and it was gone.

Then she hears it. A creak in the hallway near his room. Someone is singing to her child in Kryptonian and the only one she knows who _doesn't sound like a trash compactor is Kara_ and that's a male voice.

Lois Lane is no longer human and now, she does not want to be. She shimmers down the hallway, rips the doorknob out and storms in.

"Shh," the smirking man tells her.

_Military suit. No house crest on the uniform. Rankless._

His eyes aren't lit up and he's genuinely just holding Jon but absolutely fuck-all of this is all right with her.

"My son. Now."

"You are in no position to demand the half-breed, hu-"

She hasn't practiced but Jon's a small target and this ass isn't. Her vision blares, hot and red and rakes his left leg and his stomach. He stumbles, she strikes with everything human instinct puts into her and there's a crack. He staggers long enough to get _her_ hands around her boy's head, not this monsters. Her hands around his little torso. Her unbreakable hands, bless that idiot farmboy, around her still-fragile boy. Protecting everything.

"Leave, and I will give you a head start agai-"

Kara takes the whole wall out. before he can react to the spray of brick and steel her hand is over his eyes, her elbow under his neck, tilting up dangerously and her hands holding his eyes shut while the other digs cruelly across his bleeding _good, he's fucking bleeding_ abdomen.

"Or not. Hi, Kara."

_"Threhk surahth Tahrao voiehd tulim, chaiahm- unah Non Novoka. Zrhyv Vakatiliyn tov iv, Kara Zor-El."_

* * *

**Literal, in order:**

"Blood works toward this Justice, child-murderer Non the Rankless. Work of the Goddess I do., Kara Zor-El

**Semantic meaning, when translated:**

"This Justice demands blood, child-murderer Non the Rankless. I, Kara, work in the Goddess name."

* * *

He freezes.

"Kara?"

"This Justice demands blood, child-murderer Non the Rankless. I, Kara, work in the Goddess' name. Or close to that."

"I did nothing of th-" he chokes. "Nothing of the s-sort."

"'To place unkind hands on a child against the wishes of she who bore it is offered one mercy and filing it, is treated as murder.' Vakatiliyn naku-El's Code, Book 1, Article 9, Section 3. Our oldest book of common law. Or in all your talk of destiny and blood purity, had you forgotten that?"

"Go give my nephew his bottle, Lois. I'll deal with him."

"No," Lois decides, setting Jon in his crib and wheeling it out. "I will."

Kara changes her grip, holding Non's face straight towards her and squeezing hard.

"Remember my self-defense videos, Lois?"

She nods.

"Soft in the mouth, and the eyes. Keep drilling, I'll know when to stop."

"Yeah," Kara mutters. "When I have to duck."

Kara holds Non's eyelids open and he lashes out but pressure on his eyeball makes him sloppy, random. Lois is not. Non screams and jerks, Kara holds him fast, and Lois puts three billion years of maternal instinct and protective drive out through her eyes. She pours her too full, too scared body's tension out in waves, ruby-red and white-dwarf hot.

"It's done, Lois."

Kara steps aside. Garcia's Bodega's sign twinkles on the corner, offering two tacos for ten bucks through two clean, smooth holes in Non's skull.

=====

Lois crashes into Clark. He puts his arms around her as if to say 'there there' and 'please explain what the fuck happened' at the same time.

"Smallville," she chokes. "You're back."

"Hi, farmboy," Kara teases, bouncing Jon and humming an Ajatkar lullaby Astra would sing. "Hey there, little prince. You have your grandma's and great-grandpa's eyes, know that?"

Jon burbles and his eyes flare, licking a faint pink line up Kara's neck. He cries, surprised, and Kara laughs when he covers his own eyes with chubby hands.

"Shh-shh-shh. It's okay, kid. It's new, I know. Practice that before you go trying to burn your aunty. Sorry about...the building."

Lois laughs wetly.

"Kara, sweetie... _fuck_ that. _Fuck it sideways._ He's safe. Plus, he's being good so you just signed up for babysitting, Thursdays, Tuesdays and Saturdays. Taking him to work with you in National city is fine."

Lois had expected complaining, not a stupid little happy-dance.

It's then that another twenty feet of 1880s brick peel off and crash into the alley. Likely taking the nice old lady in 8B's bedroom wall with it.

Kara winces.

"Yeah. Sorry about that."

"We've moved before," Clark shrugs. "Is this a 'make coffee' or a 'get booze' story, honey?" Clark asks, kissing Lois' sweaty, chaotic tangle of hair.

"I can't drink while nursing. Decaf, I suppose. Kara has work and has to fly home. You, on the other hand are getting shitfaced for two. Three. Four."

Clark chuckles.

"He's a bit too young for that...how about three?"

"Fine. You Midwestern prude," Lois grumps.

"Why don't I," Clark gulps, his nose catching the smell. "Throw the door back together, maybe put a blanket under it. Keep in the heat?"

Lois nods.

=====

"So," Clark mutters. "There's a dead guy in military guild kit with heat vision burns in the baby's room. Any of the genius women in my life have a theory as to why?"

Kara ruffles Lois' hair. Jon would protest that the laughing shakes the boobs but he's busy gasping and sucking and sighing.

"Non came here. Probably thought he could teach the child better. Help him 'transcend' being a half breed while also claiming a noble name by proxy. One he never deserved, not even through my aunt if he had been better than a thaqo licker of a husband."

"Kara!" Lois chides. "Such language!"

"Halfbreed would be his term, not mine. His legal angle."

"I like hybrid!" she teases, stroking Jon's cheek. "Like Labradoodles or Reese's Peanut Butter Cups!"

"That wasn't the language I meant."

Kara's pink from her neck to her ears now.

"Right. Sorry."

Clark sighs.

"Good thing Kara was nearby. I'm so sorry I wasn't."

"The Atlantic doesn't change in size, Smallville, and I don't expect you to let apartments in Belgium burn down with children in them. We have to change our habits, is what. Tighten our schedules. I'd take him to work but..."

"But you think suicidal risk-taking that a hormonal fourteen-year-old boy wouldn't attempt is a career approach, Lois."

"I keep telling her that," Clark sighs.

Kara lifts her whiskey-laced coffee--not that it'll affect her but Lois feels better--so they can't see her shit-eating grin.

"I just held him down. Real pistol, this Lois. You know what they say about redheads and fiery tempers."

Clark just tips back like a see-saw whose bolts just popped loose.

"Did Smallville just _faint?"_ Lois chortles. "If I'd know he'd take it this bad, I'd have told him about the powers."

Kara sighs.

"So, so so much to learn. Don't worry, little prince. I'll keep you up to speed."

=====

Lois first words to a still-bleary Clark are thrown over her shoulder. Another alien, this one female in her full armor which wears is in a house crest, is staring at her son in wonder no less than Kara's. Her black hair has one braided white lock in it. This woman gets the Lois Lane seal of approval, patent-pending.

"Don't do nothing dumb, Smallville."

She was just in time, too, as only a backhanded swat followed by a grab on the wrist from Kara keeps him back.

"Astra, Clark. Clark, Astra. She's here to meet her grand-nephew and probably thank Lois for avenging her cheating, disrespectful and apparently murder-hobo of a husband's crimes against _her_ good name. I suggest you _not_ attack our aunt, head of House In Ze, in my presence. I would be both _honor-bound_ and _happy_ to slap sense into you from here to Mount McKinley. Let you chill out as you dug your way through 19,000 feet of rock. For that matter, maybe don't attack a matriarchal culture's eldest surviving queen in _Lois'_ presence. Knowing that, you OK if I let you go, Farmboy?"

"Yeah," he croaks. "Uh, sort of reflex with dads. Rough night. Also, I'm the new kid on all this. Welcome, Astra out of In-Ze."

She laughs.

"In-Ze lived when your ancestors first figured out how to throw a spear. I wish I could claim she was my birth mother. In my case, it is just my last name."

"Ah. Yes. Again, Kara's still putting up with my slow learning. Coffee?"

She nods.

"He has Seg-El's eyes," She notices. "Rao be good. They are so blue it's _criminal_."

"I know, right?" Lois laughs. "Me, mom and my sister too. That's in the little green flecks."

Astra leans closer.

"Ah. So true. Those are _not_ ours. Don't even have the genes for it."

" _El mayarah_ ," Kara whispers. "Love and eye color both."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He got between Lois Lane and her baby. Play deadly games, win deadly prizes...


	19. Red Blood, Blue Skies, Green Light (Part 4)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where just seriously, never, ever, ever fuck with Lois Lane, that's like the suicide-by-cop of the DC Comics world and Lois Lane needs a word with Little Danvers, Clark owes Kara, and there's a chess analogy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uses heavy references to Man of Steel (2013) with the World Engine terraforming device and the idea that Kal can't breathe their air, nor Kryptonians' ours. In a self-contained movie, not terrible. In larger canon, moronic.

**Clark Kent | Bhutan**

Clark has been hungover all of once. Kara's sneaky, two-drops-and-done booze is odorless and tasteless but not _without an unusual amount_ of inert cesium.

This is worse.

A yak bellows somewhere outside. The herder chides it in Bhutanese and another piece of the yurt's roof, still smelling of the original owner's furry body, flops down on his face.

There's a knock at the door.

Kara, ever the sassy little shit, somehow managed to get traditional Bhutanese garb on her way over.

"The king sends his regards and I'll pay for the yurt, and the fermented milk you broke."

Kara folds her arm and levels him with a _look_ that explains why the last time they spoke, Cat Grant seemed so meek.

"Now will you listen to Astra?"

"She hit me!"

"She did."

"Four times!"

"Good. You can count."

"What the hell, Kara?"

"Well, the _first_ one was because you were being stubborn, the _second_ one was because you called me a mad scientist, the third was me, actually because she swung hard and I didn't want you feeling guilty for plowing into an airliner over Heathrow nd killing four hundred drunk World Cup fans. So you're welcome. The fourth was so Mount Everest broke your fall, instead of the Earth's mantle."

He groans. He can't exactly say he was level headed during their chat. That was all of four seconds ago and 19,000 miles as the pinball flies.

"I think my face did."

"I hope not, Lois terrifies me."

She kneels down.

"Now, tell me again why you had the entire genetic record of our people in your _skin_ and never told me?"

"Zod. He said fo-"

Kara groans.

"For Krypton to live, Earth must die! I've seen the tapes. Yeah, turning a World Engine on a rock, any rock, will strip it to the bones."

"So you see why we can neve-"

"Shut. Up. Now!" Kara snaps. "Or I'll report to you Diana for mansplaining."

"M'Listening," he groans, trying to figure out if he'll be in the shade long enough to fix his nose.

Kara sighs.

"Here. No sense wasting a partial sample."

She uses a stylus to scrape some of the substantial outflow of blood and flecks of bone into the jar.

"Ready. Look at the bunny, OK? One, Tw-"

"Uck! I bob ike bu ribe bow."

"If I'd got to three, it'd been worse. Unexpected is better than expected pain."

"World Engine and Genesis Chambers are two different things. Did you need napalm, a lawnmower and Agent Orange to conceive with Lois?"

"Well, no."

Kara sits down beside him, flicking her beaded wool skirt out so it doesn't tear.

"Genesis Chambers make babies, Kal. That's it. All they do. Scout ship dormitories put them through elementary school at night when they dream. Fast-aged attendants play with them and do all those parts of being a kid. If he'd made a TV ad? If he hadn't been so stupid, and proud and _manly?_ Dru-Zod could probably have worked it out peacefully."

"We can't breathe the atmosphere. Except me because I was born here."

"Oh? Don't I breathe it? Born and bred on Krypton, my dude. He just turned the nitrogen content way the fuck up and turned theirs down in their helmets. Mucked your circulation and broke capillaries because you were used to 71% not 89% and Krypton was only 79% anyway. That and you were a one planet guy. Never had to breathe multiple atmospheres on a school trip. Lois wouldn't have done that much better but a few dozen coughs later, she'd have recovered."

"Zod was lying. Bluffing so Lois would crack."

"Solid tactic. Honestly, I'm disappointed you are _surprised_ the bad guy tricked you. Dru-Zod wanted to nuke the city, smog the air and salt the earth because it's quicker and mostly because he was a grunt. A shock trooper for a kill zone. Astra never pulled units like his out of the ice except for non-sentient enemies. Too messy. That's the war he was used to. Hell, he didn't think to check for Diana or Themisycra or Atlantis before pissing in humanity's coffee."

"Me? I'm happy buying the empty house down the street. Someday, probably, I hope, it'll be more like the gay couple next door. Maybe people aren't 100% on board in every house on the black but they bake welcome pies and share meals and envy their taste in decor."

"One more thing, Kal."

He looks over and sees her fighting her heat-vision as it flickers to rise. She finally gives up and melts a rock next to his head before she cools off.

"Zod...did not attack Earth. _House_ Zod...did not attack Earth. Dru-Zod did. Dru was the first rogue soldier they'd produced in so long, the carbon in the bones of the last traitor has decayed. That girl I buried the day we met?"

"Yes?"

"What was her name?"

"Fendra Kann. Alura's diaries mentioned her."

"That was a guess, Kal and for that, I am painfully ashamed I, your matriarch, got no better effort from an adult male in my house."

"Fendra was a friend. No less, no more."

"Lyta-Zod. Named after her grandmother, who had an affair with your grandfather, then got pissed because her sister was doing the same. The whole 'feud' wasn't villiany. It came down from two egotistical, horny Zod girls who wanted to piss each other off with a foolish, noble El boy caught between. Two of the greatest of the High Houses, the most desirable marriages in a way you, with human thinking, can't understand. Planets were offered. Client races would be pledged as economic allies. Dowries would include a thousand stars."

"The feud's story became wild because obviously, neither sister explained the messy end of the bethroal. Rankless and minor Houses made up tall tales to explain it. Try and get their heads around how in Vhoc's hole the Els and the Zods ended up yelling at each other in open council."

"Be...very...very... _very_...careful...speaking about House Zod in front of cameras Clark. In my presence, I forbid it."

"Lyta spent six years of her life in house arrest, proud to be a prisoner, as my hostage. Because she was the best of her house and though her house was dissolved, debts remained. Zod were honorable to the point of death before capture even when other houses called it barbaric. Methodical as a _scalpel_ in following orders. Patriotic like the public's approval was their _oxygen_. Messianically, martyringly, _stupidly_ brave. _She was a Zod! And I loved her because of it!_ "

"I'm sorry, Kara. I didn't know."

"Because you never ask!" she roars. 

"If Kryptonian science knew it, ever? _I do._ I am the collected wisdom and proofs and theories of _thousands_ Kal, because they poured into me the right answers, and the wrong ones get dumped on computers for my pop quiz. I am the distilled genius of entire nations worth of learned women and men before me!"

"I held my dead lover in my arms. The last Napoleon! The last Alexander! The last Cleopatra! The last Romanov and Marie Curie and Neil Armstrong and Einstein and Veermer! And you, you, _you_!" she snarls, shaking her finger. "Could have _saved_ her." 

"Dru-Zod had come and gone. You knew what the codex was and what it did. But with your never asking, never offering, never watching the main databank until I made you, until I helped you find it? You saw a girl lying still and you thought like _Kansas_ boys and didn't even say 'what can I do' because I would've said 'unless you've got Kryptonian codexes in your back pocket? Fuck all'. You didn't mention the Codex in you and I, like an idiot, didn't pry as to what _you_ were doing here. How did an _infant_ steal a starship? How were we so desperate that an El spoke Kryptonian more clumsily than a broken Kandoori trash robot?"

"You stole yours?"

"That's what stuck for you?"

  
"Fuck you, Kal! Yes. My mother's office had just collapsed in flames, my father's lab was nothing but a cascade of explosions tearing the building in half, the soil we could see was already magma. But I was an El and House El was not dying while I breathed I had a Zod holding my hand and-a-a," Kara chokes.

He ges up to hold her and her eyes, cruel and red and hot, throw him back with heat vision like he never felt before.

"No! Her courage that day would have restored her House far beyond question! I had an Zod with me and she loved me. This made me brave and there was a path of an intact walkway to the shipyards and there was a good chance. A fighting chance and we were fighters, both as individuals and as houses. So _fuck yes_ when the guard, panicky and useless, told us to wait in a nonexistent line for his dead supervisor to call our names, I snapped his fucking neck! I was a matriarch, Kal! That was my job!"

"In three awful seconds I went from girl reading a paper to the Matriarch of House El and my one mission in life was to carry that on! I wasn't Kara! I was House El, in flesh, struggling to survive. I was purebred and my arms were smaller but my muscles were honed and enhanced and I could to kill him and he made me so I did!" she bellows.

"You saw a dead girl in a box! I stared, hollowed, at half a species. I knew an empress of a line of conquerors, soldiers, painters, diplomats, scientists so long humans cannot fathom what it means. Snuffed out by a fucking _brick_ because I, an El, the nerdy one, the dreamer, was overconfident in my hacking skill so I had to go back for the guard's access crystal! Lyta was Zod to her bone, she told me to drag the guard over just in case. Practical. Suspicious. Paranoid in the best ways. Hedged her bets."

"You didn't ask what happened or how it could be prevented from happening again... A drop of blood and a pinch of skin and could have grown her still-intact brain a body before sundown, Kal! We could have watched my first sunset on Earth," she croaks.

"Together. Krypton, right there, restored. Us in each others arms. There would be no maybe, no can we survive. None of this uncertainty that keeps me awake. If an El and a Zod lived, we lived. Highly divergent genetics, packed with redundant alleles. More than enough."

She smacks a finger into her palm.

"Names and house memory engrams that were known. That made us scary. And smart. And respected."

Another finger.

"If a quorum, two houses, survived, we had a counsel. Our species lived. Our legend lived. Alone, we would be hunted by slavers. Broken little princesses. Together, we would be untouchable, a core of Krypton not _one of our allies, not the fucking Pahiikans even_ would dare to abandon!"

"Yin and Yang, black and white. You can paint a glorious picture with black and white, Kal. With only white?"

"A blank page," he mumbles, daring to talk for the first time in the whole rant.

"The fallen bricks maimed Lyta. You _withholding_? You _not knowing_ how to ask good questions? Your not _offering_? That's what _killed_ her. When Lyta died, that's when Kryptonians went from having a super fucked up day to being endangered."

"Eve and Eve landed in that ship, Kal. An self-made angel never offered help, and now I know why. In that story, you're not Michael or Moses or Abraham. You're fucking Cain. You should have been your brother's keeper, Clark Kent, christened in the Episcopal Church."

Kara leaves behind a crater of rock decorated with pink crystals like the kind asteroid craters have, a slowly-drifting scraps of the shepherdess dress are picked up by the wind.

There's a sticky note on his chest.

_'Kal -- We're still family but I do not want to see you for a while. Long while. I will decide when. When I do, I will say it and until that day? You, male, younger...you will obey me. Or else we will work on your manners as I would an infant. You will learn that your El blood disqualifies you from the ways of the human patriarchy. Kara.'_

_'Lois -- Our girls night is still on and I'll take Wednesdays with Jon if Martha doesn't want them.'_

What's saddest and most humiliating is only the part for Lois is in Kryptonian glyphs.

=====

**Lena Luthor**

(quoted and italics _"like so"_ are translated from Interstellar Standard)

Transmat on Earth gives her a splitting headache. Transmat over interstellar distances leaves her quite refreshed.

_Something to noodle on._

The Helgrammite's mandibles shiver.

"Luthor-Madam-Younger! We expected you not for two days more time!"

"Good pronunciation," Lena jokes. "Right words. Wrong grammar. Our words, your order. Better by far than last time. I'll leave you another book."

She snaps her fingers. Otis drags the trunk of solar crowns behind him, watched by Jess like an eagle watches a mouse. They let him think human males needed space suits here, but human females didn't due to the presence of the hormone ovariagynrestrogen and it's all Jess can do to keep her composure.

"Show me the pens, Halshak. I wish to leave by the second sunset."

"Once-at, Luthor-Madam-Younger!"

The pens are as always, heartwrenching. A pretty Starhavenite with mocha skin and wings of tan flame holds Infernain children to her, holding them to her feathers so they don't freeze. The headdress she wears is Chippewa, Lena recognizes. Not purely the earth version, but recognizably that of a chieftain's daughter. The Preservers took her from that tribe when their probes detected Colombus' ripple effect. Settlements were made and intermarriage happened, as it will.

Would that Custer had faced the returning emigrants, winged and angry, having learned to string bows with spun diamondglass, not tendons and with skin hot as a thermite bomb. Lena likes to think she would enjoy learning Alqonqiun or Navajo on the streets of Dublin, and surely young marriage, piles of babies, and hard labor is pleasanter and truer than the life Lillian gave her.

"Her."

"Forty thousand," Halshak's owner tells her. 

"The children too."

"Ah, yes, good, fertile, pretty. Nine thousand each."

"Don't tell me _price_. I have your price," she hisses. "Tell me if they have any sickness, or dietary needs, and that _only_. I will leave with your records of their former trades, their places of capture. Everything. I want Halshak to collect it for me."

Lena hopes winking carried across the stars with the bewildered tribesmen. A tilt of the head suggests it did.

"Daxamites?"

"Two. Concubines. Three hun-"

Lena raises her eyebrow.

"If you can't listen, I'll find a slave merchant who can. Still one competitor, so I hear."

He bows, mandibles spread.

"True-it-is. Business dangerous. Apologies make, Luthor-Madam-Younger."

Lena huffs.

"Anything exotic?"

"A Saggitarian triad, hybrids with something unknown. Ripe with eggs, three laid already. A human. The torso of a Coluan."

"Bring the human to me, unmarked and unbeaten, now. I'll take the middle decks, everyone."

"Your palace must be grand, Luthor-Madam-Younger!"

A dirty, tattooed human woman is tossed at her feet. Lena crouches down and sighs.

"Ronnie, why do I keep finding you in these places?"

Veronica laughs, weakly. 

"Poor choice in henchman on my part.

"Water," Lena demands, snapping her fingers. "Now."

She helps Veronica drink it.

"There. Better?"

"Yeah, thanks. Guess you were right about the Singapore triad."

"I am right rather often, Roulette. Don't worry, I'm already having them killed on general principle."

"Yeah, well, forgive me for not thinking straight with a full view of Lena Luthor's tits," Ronnie groans, holding the water casks' cool metal to her head. "I don't think I recovered from when we were thirteen and you let me touch them, not fully."

"Poor baby," Lena jokes.

"Otis, get her to the gate, then the relay to my office. Jess...make sure he doesn't fall into quicksand or get his dick stuck in a hole in a fence or something."

"You and I," Lena hisses. "Will be having a _talk_ about this."

"Figured," Ronnie asks. "How long until I can wear clothes again, Mistress?"

"Haven't decided," Lena says airily, looking around the filthy, wicked place.

"Worth it..." Veronica jokes, holding her bruised thumb up as Otis carries her like a sack of stupid, sexy, reckless potatoes.

"Show me the Saggis," Lena demands.

The triplets, curiously, are neither chained, collared, nor seemingly contained by force at all. The only possible cause Lena can see is the smears of Helgramite ichor all over the walls leading to their cell--once a cafeteria--and the abundance of Saggitarian like plant life. They're being bribed, more than anything. Apparently they were hybridized with something truly lethal because Helgrammite guts come in nine colors and she's seen more than four smears of each.

 _"Do you speak Standard?"_ Lena asks.

 _"Yes,"_ comes a raspy, hissed reply from two bright, white-ringed eyes in the bushes.

_"Have they hurt you, or the eggs?"_

_"No. Food, water, fronds. It is brought to us. We live as the first clutches did. Watched but fat. We miss our spark, though. Died by the slavers."_

_"Your spark?"_

_"They who fertilized the eggs, we call spark. Because it may be male, or female, or neuter, Daxamite or Coluan."_

_"So you used a more romantic, general term."_

_"Yes, Luthor-Madam-Younger. Tales circulate of your wit, even here."_

_"Please, my name is Lena. I no longer bother correcting Bavak and Halshak's stumbling amuses me."_

_"You are not buying, are you?"_ hisses a nearly identical voice.

_"Not as they think, no."_

_"May we touch your small foot, Lena?"_

_"My hand? I suppose."_

_"Gratitude. We wish, we all wish..."_

They do, one after the other and glowing white threads knit into her skin. Thoughts of pain, and wasp eggs bursting from beetles are dispelled when a full-body, Grand Mal orgasm overtakes her. Lena finds herself curled on the floor, dealing with the aftershocks rather poorly for a woman who gets more than her fair share.

_"She enjoys our touch..."_

_"Her temper is quick..."_

_"Her heart is soft..."_

"Luthor-Madam-Younger," Halshak asks. "Did they injure you?"

"No, no. No fault of theirs. The flowers. I'm allergic."

 _"She is cunning..."_ hisses a voice. _"Deceptive..."_

Lena can barely hear over her still-cotton stuffed ears and the threads in her skin are glowing now.

"Sensory and communicative telepathy", Lena mutters, stroking her apparently unbroken skin where the parasites or whatever they are can no longer be seen.. "Interesting..."

"Ah. Yes," Halshak replies, from somewhere down several wells. 

"We felt it was best to take a gentler touch so we purchased some flowers from a jungle moon. They were quite docile until Bavak's predecessor thought he could sell the eggs. Inward shelled idiot if ever I met one. Bavak decided that guards cost money and he wanted to live to retire."

_"Eggs are ours..."_

_"Eggs are future..."_

_"Eggs will be nest-mothered by Lena..."_

That shocker gets Lena off the floor.

"Halshak?"

"Yes, Luthor-Madam-Younger."

Otis has not returned, but Jess has. Her cherished Nth metal kukri knife is wet and red with a few drips of gray matter.

"It was high time to teach Lenny about the Rabbits," she shrugs. "Would've turned on us anyway once he realized we weren't playing reserve team talent scout for Lex's little battery factory."

"Halshak. You were a slave once. You know this is wrong."

He clacks his mandibles.

"Must eat."

"I understand, more than you think. Run. There's a ship in the woods, not far. Kryptonian. It's a wreck but it'll fly. Get to it, use up the engines, and turn on the beacon. Take this."

She presses a case with a few hundred solar crowns into his hand.

"I do not understand, Luthor-Madam-Younger. Are you sayin-"

"RUN!" Lena hisses.

"Jess?"

"Yeah, boss?"

"Book of Exodus."

Jess gun arm goes up like a sword slicing through the air and she drops two guards before the third rounds the corner. Lena pulls her Beretta from her purse--just for style points--and empties it into Bavak's confused skull.

She reaches into her blazer and clicks on her repeller circuitry. Jess had already. The next six guards find their plasma bolts going every which way except into Jess and Lena's bodies they try a missile only to have it detonate, stuck at the halfway point.

_Lex isn't the only one with tech only he can make._

"My turn," Jess snarls. Pulling out a fusion-torch blade the length of a longsword, she lunges. With it in in one hand and the sizzling lancer in the other, she ducks between, around, and often through the guards as her blade cuts them in two and in one artful use, cuts them in three.

 _Jess Huang. Chinese name. Not the greatest cover, unless you're a racist or a rube. I wonder if the other Yamashiro sisters have any skill with light filing?_ ****

"Hellspore?" Lena asks into her phone as she pulls up the facility map.

There's benefits to being a repeat customer who demands full tours.

"Two hours till the drip hits it. Seventy percent out the door, screener module on the transmat portal's control module. Good guys, home. Bad guys, nine or ten trillion different endpoints. "

Lena presses herself against the wall to the Saggi's chamber. She hears a hiss of pain in her ear.

"Jess?"

"Just a workout, Miss Luthor. Keep your fangs to yourself, asswipe! Missed hot yoga yesterd-"

There's an all too familiar sizzling sound.

"Yesterday morning. Needed this. Now, any of the rest of you want to interrupt a girl sharing workout tips with her bestie?"

This time, Lena hears the clatter of dropped weapons.

"We do good work together boss. Ninety-two percent now."

"Tell me," Lena says over your shoulder. "Your spark? What were they like."

_"Like the sun with skin covering it, on one half. Like a machine, on the other. The system was sunless, so we could not see. He spoke the languages they speak under Rao's light. We visited when we were young, when we wanted but before we could egg. It was dry and hot. We did not like the weather or the empty skies and oceans. Though our hostess was kind."_

_"Most kind..."_

_"Energy... Stamina..."_

_"Flexibility... Curiousity..."_

_"You met Zor-El? The cyborg? What was left of him?"_

_"El...yes....yes...the crest! We knew it but we did not connect it. The same one whose house we enjoyed! Small universe, is this."_

It never ceases to amuse her when totally disparate cultures accidentally share quite idioms.

 _"I owed him a debt, of a sort, and he owed me..."_ Lena replies.

Lex wasn't _that_ easy to defeat, not without help.

_"No more, I suppose."_

"Jess?"

"Get the armored vehicle back here. Precious cargo."

"Solid copy, boss. Hammerhead team, through the portal, now! Turtles one through five! Kestrels on standby!"

A dozen flying tanks the Pentagon thought too flashy and pricey sail through the transmat, main engines flipped downward to keep them gliding over the ground and their triple-barreled turrets swinging this way and that to slag defenses, fleeing shuttles and incoming reinforcements. Advanced races forget railguns shoot _bullets_ and humans remember all sorts of _nasty_ things can be loaded inside bullets.

Following them are stubby-legged, six-sided troop carriers. Lena took her share of the family's horde of N-Metal and upgraded them. Lillian and Lex hoard. She uses. She spends. Spent in on those, her private 'jet', and in her and Jess' work attire. Just enough left for another wardrobe, some sweatpants, perhaps a swimsuit or ten, and a camping tent.

The injured, the elderly and weak, and the young are loaded, with the last filled with the Saggis, their three eggs, and Lena herself.

"How'd we do?"

"We lost nineteen civvies. Donnelly took a shot in the chest BECAUSE HE THOUGHT HIS DICK MADE HIM LASERPROOF. They lost nine hundred. Saved seven thousand boss. Not perfect but hell of a fight. The crowns?"

"Leave them. Money like that? Untraceable, accepted by all the most reputable scoundrels? Suitable for Lex to buy Apokoptian weapons? Only brings trouble."

"You'll be the last through boss. Do the honors?"

The back of the turtle drops open. Around them, the defunct Luthor Foundation School for First-Generation Americans is a yawning, empty shell of Art Deco ego left empty to appease Lillian's racism. Volunteers from the Hearts of Themiscyra, Memory of Krypton and Wayne Foundation are breaking collars off and checking injuries while Queen Family Charities spearhead the handing out of blankets, sorting food by biology so the soup kitchen doesn't kill anyone. Her handpicked Martian and Epsilon GEnimian translators are interviewing adults to see who can be quickly disguised and placed in jobs, and who needs to be sheltered and trained or who cannot mix and must simply be cared for.

Lena looks at the radio in her hand. She sets the timer to two minutes, pushes the button and flings it into the portals' rings.

"Break it down, gentlemen. Keep it humming and put it through the big one. Dial Xray-Three-Lima-Nike-Four-Four-Six and once it's through, close it.

"Aye-aye, ma'am."

Jess leans close.

"What the hell is at X-3-N-4-4-6 anyway, boss? The universe's recycling bin?"

"Mmm?" Lena asks, oh-so-innocent. "Charity pantry."

"Cut the shit, boss."

"Fine. It's a New Genesis military facility. Orbiting a supermassive black hole near the Source Wall and that orbits a wormhole with an outlet is aimed straight at Apokopis. Just needs more juice to breakthrough.

"Like, say, a half-dozen forced supernovas sucked through the Perpetuan Gateway network?"

"Something like that."

"How many is this?"

"NIne. Once we confirm Lex didn't hook any of the rest up to slavers or lunatics, we'll scrap everything but Starhaven, Naltor, and Colu. Dial uninhabited four-and-five star systems, and shoot our shot, as it were, with the spores we capture from mother dearest."

Jess shoulders her playfully.

"That's cold, boss. Real cold."

Eighty million light-years away, water drips onto what _could_ be called a plant, if Poison Ivy and the Joker had a psychotic child. The planet that it sits on disappears in the first ten seconds. Tendrils of nanites, plasma and just general abomination gather up asteroids and turn them into antimatter. Three yellow stars with seventy billion years left to live are drained. 

The ring carries it all to the edge of the known universe and when the machine _finally_ overloads, it's nasty cargo is belched out in two long plumes, now being fed into the furnace of the greatest war in the multiverse. 

Lena will be on the winning side. Lex chose wrong. Cruelty alone doesn't pick the winner, Lena knows.

Lex is a madman, and she, she hopes, is nothing more than a reluctant Luthor who rescued a few million out of few trillion enslaved beings. Winning is what _Luthors_ do.

Jess slides the kukri into the elegantly concealed thigh holster in the 'pocket' of her 'slacks' and trades the military-style lancer for a more svelte, one-punch covert version. She hands its mates to Lena, who tucks them into her jacket's inner pockets, in the lead-line and soundproofed compartments.

"Fun morning, boss?"

"Very. How shall we wrap up our short Tuesday, my friend."

"Investor meeting?"

"Send the written version."

"Sigma Financial, that's Arias."

"Play hard to get. Send...Monica. Cute straight girl. Arias wants a buyout and she's blueballed. Make one work for the other."

Jess makes little puffing noises, ticking off a few based on her knowledge of Lena's preferences.

"Anonymous tip, that'll handle that. Agreed."

"Agreed. Her. Shady SEC filing," Lena tells her, glancing over her shoulder. "Partner doesn't know. Float it. Some whistleblower will take them down."

"Cat Grant wants to do Sunday brunch...with her girlfriend apparently."

"Glad she's found religion," Lena jokes. "Put a pin in it. Reconsider on Thursday. That it?"

"Nope. Daily Planet interview."

Judging by the blushes, at least _some_ of the humans and one of the Daxamites, speak Gaelic and know some salty language.

"No good deeds, ma'am. No good deeds," Jess sighs.

=====

Lena knows how to deal with blowhards. Usually. Clark Kent is a special case. He doesn't approach or intrude or intimidate. He just sticks, like some stump in the field, and doesn't let her push him back. They trade their barbs, a Super and a Luthor and he fully unsubtly scans her office with his vision.

"Do you play chess, Mister Kent?"

"Twice, I think," he smiles. "I didn't understand why it was so much _meaner_ than dodgeball."

All charm, all the time. Always genuine because his _human identity_ has five left feet and what amounts to negative fashion sense. Straight women in big cities are torn between wanting to ride him and wanting to protect this little deer in the deep dark woods until his antlers grow in. She supposes. 

Straight women. Not her circus, not her monkeys.

"Do you know some feel the bishop is the least useful piece?"

"Well, I have a guess but I think Princeton would have me put in the stocks if I told you that."

"Diagonals, Mr. Kent. Pawns can do that, and there's more of them. Some players mastered that, I never really did. Lex used it mercilessly until I started making him play with a handicap."

She shrugs.

"Orphans have strange childhoods."

"See, the problem with a bishop is it's a _pawn_ , that thinks it's _noble_ because it's got a cross and a funny hat. Like money and piety give it some ennobled status to kill with impunity. Life imitating art. Kings, Knights, Queens. Rooks, when desperate. Those are my favorites. Though I was never immune to the chance to have Lex's king pressed in by two starving pawns, no doubt rebelling due to a lack of bread. Happened three times."

"Your chess games have a rich inner life."

"I suppose they did," Lena replies, glancing out her window. "Ask your question, Superman."

He sprays coffee on her floor.

"You should try comedy, Miss Luthor."

"Hardly. I'll send the _Planet_ a bill for that."

"Hmm!" he coughs. "Fair enough."

"Why wasn't I on Flight 237? Ask my goddamn limo driver. Never showed up. Nor did the backup car. Next morning, I couldn't even find the office or company. Phones were dead. Cars were empty and abandoned all over the place. I sent my security team. Empty HQ building. Best I can tell, someone planned to have me killed and someone else thwarted them by vanishing a whole subsidiary of Luthor Transit, half a billion and all."

"So, so sorry! I forgot to plug the me-"

Lena turns.

_Well now, hello._

She's speechless in Lena's presence, always a good start.

She's _everything._

She's blonde.

She's tall.

She's muscular.

She's almost certainly Kryptonian, given her timing, the company she keeps, that sugar-white skin that hasn't burned in Metropolis in July and mostly and those ludicrous glasses.

Best of all, she looks right about ready to throw Clark out the window for some alone time.

"Who are you, exactly?"

"Never mind. Clearly, I am double-booked. I prefer my reporters mono a mono, Mr. Kent. You've had your turn, the lady is up to bat. Good day."

He stands here, like a crashed computer.

"Go," she says, flicking her hand towards him and then the door.

"You, stay," she commands, snapping her finger and pointing to the nearest chair.

Lena reclines on her desk, splaying her arms out.

"Who are you, _exactly_?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tatsu Yashimoro is the civilian identity of Katana in DC comics. Tatsu is Katana. The younger five sisters and their kid brother? They have to work for a living.
> 
> Lillian should never leave the family nerd in charge of an interstellar gateway network.
> 
> In the comics, Starhaven seems to be Native Americans? For reasons? So I used the "Perservers", who like in original Trek bopped around preserving cultures on a superlarge (thus spacious) rocky planet called Starhaven.


	20. Red Blood, Blue Skies, Green Light (Part 5)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where just seriously, never, ever, ever fuck with Lois Lane, that's like the suicide-by-cop of the DC Comics world and Lois Lane needs a word with Little Danvers, Clark owes Kara, and there's a chess analogy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that the "Name" at the top is not simply someone's ID. It is their identity. It is whose headspace we're standing in. Pay attention to that, may vary as the plot slogs on.

**Kara Zor-El**

Kara gulps. Lena Luthor is leaning on her desk, red lips upcurled in a smirk, green eyes burrowing into Kara's soul and her long, pink, pretty hands spread wide. Leaning back on her desk in a way that's pornographic or regal depending on the next twitch she makes.

"Who are you, _exactly_?"

_This is not fair! If I had to refrain from attainting Kal, making him Rankless despite full cause, I should not have to look at a woman this beautiful on the same day! I should not have to swallow shit and kiss the sun in the same breath!_

Lena snorts. Kara's head snaps up.

"I am flattered but sounds like some mouthwash might be in order first."

=====

"Yes, thank you, Doctor Danvers. Of course, you can count on my full discretion. Good night."

Kara's eyes wobble open.

_She's real. Still real. That's something at least._

Lena is haloed by brightening stars and city lights flickering on to replace the sun and she should never be less than kissed by the greatest and brightest things humans can make. They should be honored to be the background outlining her.

_Might still be a little dopey._

Kara's on Lena's couch and there's a fucking pulse oximeter on her finger and an AED machine has been spread out in panic across the floor and the ruined, melted paddles are adhered to, perhaps permanently, to her shirt because of the suit below. In what might be the most Luthor move in human history, a black market betahedron has been uncased and wired into the AED using a hodgepodge of Coluan scrap parts to up the voltage penetration in case that might help. _  
_

Lena comes back over.

"The bad news, you can have heart attacks. The good news is that they're neurological, not arterial blockage and that your brain cells don't actually get damaged when temporarily deprived. You scared me. Drink."

"Yeah," Kara gulps, letting her chin be lifted to the glass of water. "I'm classy like that."

Her laugh low and real and throaty. It is drums and primal dance and tribal songs and Kara is going to make her laugh so she have _all this woman's babies_ as soon as she possibly can.

"If you don't mind my asking..." Lena says, shrinking in on herself. "I mean, I am a Luthor so, I would understand if no-"

"Ask. Anything."

"What's a Rankless?"

Kara sits up like someone electrified her. Well, _again_.

"Owwwww. You sexy Irish girls pack a wallop," Kara complains.

"That was the AED, silly."

"Mmm. Like mine better."

"You, Miss Danvers, are ridiculous."

"You, Miss Luthor, want me anyway."

Lena looks up, swallows and opens her mouth, then pauses, then closes it."

"I suppose...I don't suppose lying would help."

Kara, feeling bold, sniffs the air deeply and turns her ear towards Lena and lowers her glasses.

"You tell me, Miss Luthor. You're a brilliant scientist and me saying that is not light praise. It's like the Nobel committee dropping dead of shock at the sight of you. What might cause a spike in aerosolized proteins from the Cowper's lands, a surge of blood through your vena cava, rising thermal energy and circulation in your genitals, and a three-millimeter rise in your nipples? Hmm? Counter hypothesis?"

"It seems hardly fair to protest to a woman with X-Ray vision that I'm not sitting over here terribly turned on, so yes. Yes. My body is turned on. Mentally, however, I am not yet so intrigued. For one thing, casually scanning people to see whether they're hard, whatever their equipment, seems like a violation of privacy if not a slanting of the field on which consent is granted. Or denied. Or worse," Lena jokes. "Retracted."

"Ugh," Kara groans. "Straight girl?"

"Straight girl."

"Well, truth is, I had been very carefully looking at a helipad on the hospital across town because if I looked down, one degree further I was going to see that and I try not to do that unless the game is on, so to speak. Then, it's just another way of listening to your partner. Until you teased me. Then, I made eye contact and with, it since I was not actively refraining my other senses, all else. The furrows in your sternum are miraculous, Lena. Microscopic, to be sure but like geometric art in a mosque or perhaps, on a Celtic cross."

Lena's shiver rises from her hips to her head upon hearing that. Self consciously, she closes her jacket.

"Please. Don't."

_Whoever made her ashamed will regret their every breath._

"Oh."

"Mmm."

"Might we forget this, Miss Danvers? Just ignore each other like the monster in the closet until your sister arrives and we mutually go away?"

"Mathematically speaking that is possible. But feel watching over an injured matriarch who attempted to shut down due to gay panic deserves more reward than one simple question about my home."

Kara hopes that in an hour or two sitting up will seem plausible. Until the, she has to not let Lena fucking leave her sight. Lena's fingers still over the keys.

"Very well, I do find challenging women...distracting. What is a rankless?"

"Seventy percent of the population have no _detectable_ ties to the old houses. As science improved, people were linked with long lost relatives and welcomed with feasts and stupid drinking and all that or the links were disproven and they were transferred to publicly purchased housing of equal value outside of the house citadel, unless the house internally voted otherwise. They are Rankless and on the council, they had I believe thirty votes between them. Zod and El held sixty-two, together."

"Hmm," Lena frowns. "How very...autocratic."

"Rankless councilors introduced more than half of the bills that got pass the year the planet died."

Lena's gazes lifts to Kara.

"Why?"

"Practicality, of course. Imagine if you are a US senator and you have two competing masters: Your home state, and the deeds and glories and mistakes of every relative in an unbroken, carefully traced line back to somewhere in _Homo erectus._ You know, that really glossy-haired cavewoman with the heterochromia who invented kissing other cavewomen."

The smirk returns.

"Gotcha. See, the evil alien _can_ make the mean lady smile!"

"At any rate, all but the most brilliant house councilors were incredibly gunshy, for that reason and because tangles of economic holdings, colonies, mines, client agreements with minor or non-spacefaring governments, and fortunes stretching the Milky Way, Andromeda and part of the Triangulum made self-interest nearly opaque. Hard to be corrupt and get one up on the competition in any but the most naked way if so many variables exist. "

Lena cocks her head.

"Equally hard to serve your constituents favorably, in some cases I'm sure."

'Precisely. Rankless had none of that _tahoq_."

"That what?"

"Oh no, we'd have to sleep together five or six times before I say anything that crude to you."

"They saw a problem, say, irregular tax reports on the edges of the city and they could solve it. Argo City, _their_ city. What did they care if there were issues with return time on auto-freighters for antimatter to Andromeda? Sent some of their investigators out, came up with a best guess, and dropped it in the Council's squabbly laps. Unless the same problem had been some houses pet project, like georepair and recolonization were for Els, they were probably far and away the most complete plan."

"Did the nobles find that embarrassing?"

"Shola El-Vex, our representation, found it a relief. Without our house protecting our holdings, the GDP would crater. But with her tied up batting down problems that affected one-ninth of an economy that large, she didn't have time to fix anything. The way she was wired, it bothered her. It was symbiotic. We didn't tower over them because they knew we could govern ourselves as well as efficiently and peaceably a bag of wet cats could, and deep down, so did we. We didn't exclude them from the rising tide lifting all boats because they could fuck us over on sewage repair in some fantastically detailed, subtle way we wouldn't see coming until house fountains were spewing."

Kara fumbles in her messenger bag for a ballpoint. She makes two tick marks on her hand.

"What are you doing."

"That's...two. Twice I've made you smile."

"Brat."

"That's three."

"Very well."

Kara manages to sit up halfway. Progress. Now she just has to get Lena over here, on her lap, her walls fluttering on Kara's fingers and her back arch and her moans lost in Kara's mouth. She's an El. She's the product of collected nerds of an entire species. She can solve this equation.

"What about, we lay truth or myth. About Krypton. I'll tell you if something, you guess truth or myth, then we flip. I'll start."

"Krypton was monotheistic."

"Truth. Raoism."

"Myth. The Juru Valley's Ajatkanii faiths had fifteen percent of the planetary population. Goddess-centred polytheism. Think female Ares and her encourage of fuckbuddies and rough sketch of their pantheon. Zod and nearby houses in the polar region still included an ice god, Cythonna, in their faith. "

"Interesting. My turn."

"Kryptonians..." Lena taps her finger on her chin.

That...suckable...finger.

"Kryptonians were imperialistic."

"Myth, Lena. Empires don't fall because one city burns down. The empire we were, once? Would have weathered the loss of Krypton easily. It also had over seven thousand minor houses and a council voting system ninety times the size. Pet projects were feasible, legislators could zero in. Even when empresses went to war, their _royal right,_ their domain where thy were autocrats? Tax code wasn't theirs to command. A few hallroom conversations and a raising of hands could starve a theatre's troops of their salaries."

"The empire better balanced than the republic?"

Kara nods.

"Yes. Because the Empire was what we were, truly. Their cities stand. Their fortress is intact, patrolled by androids. The Republic was a lie we told ourselves, trying to recreate two hundred billion people on seventy planets on one planet with the fifty billion that both fell for and survived a lunatic brand of Raoism's attempt to force all to resettle, crowding in on the fifteen billion natives who were mostly atheist eggheads, going through the motions, or Ajatkanii priests, priestesses and nuns. The War Queens of Ajatk Desert and Juru Valley didn't give _themselves_ that name. Shrieking fanatics clambering over their robed dead, shitting themselves at the sight of an In-Ze column, their god having not struck down the heathen as requested, that's who named them."

"Honestly, I think the smart ones were the splinter groups who we now call Free Daxamites who just fucked off while we played 'who's the dumbest'. Not the planetary Daxamites. They were our worst tendencies, minus the racism but up the religious crazy so it's a wash. The frees were colonials who looked round at their lunatic neighbors, pretended to go along then wandered off, linked back up later in massive nomadic flotillas. They certainly got laid more. Kryptonian DNA is foundational in nine species with their own distinct histories. Saturnians, Valeronians, Episilon Geminians, Carggites, and others I won't reveal under galactic law. Because they're not known to humans."

"Mineral depletion is a fact of life for industrial species inhabiting plants. The rock is only so big, not all needs can be mined in asteroids and even manufacturing has a cost. The sheer pace of ours, that _was_ self-inflicted. No models existed that accounted for it because no other galactic power was so stupid as to overconcentrate like that. A handful of houses ignored it and were more isolated than the least popular Rankless parties for it. Most couldn't wrap their heads around how close we were and different models said, decades, years, days, weeks, hours. An evacuation fleet was being readied for an exodus to the old colonies using the averages of the three respected models that were lowest. All thinking in months. Turned out, it was the worst two outliers. More like a a week when the order to fire up the autopilot came down." 

"Kara, I'm sorry."

Kara shrugs.

"If any house acquitted itself well, it's El or Zod. We threw ourselves into the models, into mitigation, anything that would buy time and Zod threw their might, their soldiers, into the ship construction. You'd never know it from the Metropolis incident, but Zod and El worked hand in glove for nearly our whole history. It took Dru-Zod, the first traitor their military line produced in a hundred thousand years, colliding with Kal-El, who I am thinking might actually be more horse than man, to give that bad impression. Back home, the El-Zod feud was a girl, fighting with a girl about a boy. Then the first girl's regrettable old flame goes full chaos bisexual, bops in and grabs the boy. Nyssa-Vex, my paternal grandmother. That's the root of it. The rest is tabloid fodder."

"Juicy..." Lena teases. "May I?"

"If you're asking if I'll skip a turn, the answer is yes."

Lena closes her laptop.

"The birthing matrices made Kryptonians functionally asexual. Myth?"

"Both. Functionally, yes. We didn't _need_ sex. Emotionally, psychologically? No. Let me answer with a clarifying one. Krypton was patriarchal."

"Of course, 'my father, Jor-El' and 'his father' and..."

Kara is guffawing.

"OK, once I snag you, Lois Lane and I are going to take _classes_ on that Clark impression."

"You think me a forgone conclusion?"

"I think you a woman who my sister just texted me saying never mind, call her tomorrow."

"Take lions, and flip it. Females have higher upper body strength, noticeable, but not massive lead, despite an average 10% lower height and our twitch reflex lead is insane. When Kal went after Faora during the invasion? She hardly needed the training to dodge him. That was her birthright, those moves."

Kara sighs. 

"We ended up this weird split. A nearly species-ending war at the start of our written history led to a female victory power wise but a male victory culturally. The matriarchy was restored but without oral histories intact. The upstart male-led religions had written history. So the men knew better than to try a damn thing but to name our children, we had to use _their names._ Paternity determined inheritance but female approval determined marriage. So in the end," Kara sighs.

"Female dominated," Lena realizes.

"Bingo. It takes a Kryptonian the better part of a year to become fertile and it's depending on quality of the sex, quality of the food she's getting, meditation, her emotional state over time, in close proximity to the male. We can be beaten, we can be kidnapped, we can be yes, raped. But we cannot be _bred._ On the other hand, the matriarch needed only find the prisoners of war who could be taught and pass them around once a year and presto. Large numbers of women in the cults just, stepped back. Dieted. Meditated less. Sterilized themselves. Attrition will out."

"We also bred genetic correlates for rape out like, half a million years ago and sexual harassment became a memory about a quarter-million so..."

Lena scoffs.

"Lucky bitches."

Lena abandons her desk and pulls over a chair.

"You were mad at Kal, Clark, I suppose, weren't you, when you came in?"

"Yeah. Hell, as Martriach of El, I probably should have attained him just to send a message. SO his son has to see his dad re-earn the crest. I had cause."

"What was that, if you're willing to say."

"Part of it is intimate, and part of it incredibly raw. But one cause, all I'd need would be his matriarch asked him a reasonable question for any educated adult -- as slam dunk -- and he _fucking guessed. Rudely._ Then denied it, judged, mansplained and sputtered for an hour while I poured my guts out about how if I'd known more about him, my first girlfriend would've woken from her coma in my arms the day I landed here, not been sent of to the sun in her casket. Honestly, if not for embarrassing myself in front of an esteemed family like the Luthors, I would have been pounding on him."

"Not funny."

"Well good because," Kara replies, leaning out and catching Lena's hand.

"Not...a...joke. You're engineers, financiers, schemers, scientists, fighters when you must but not attrition. Plot, Strike, Retreat, Encircle. Wealthy, but with a core of goodness. Well, you but you've gotta have like, a secret cousin and at any rate I think you'll be a great mom so, yeah."

Tears run down those luscious cheeks and Kara really wishes her brain would unmush her legs already.

"Don't, don't _tempt_ me. Don't _praise_ me."

"Lena, I wasn't only describing you. I was describing Vakatiliyn naka-El, my house founder. Though you do have enough of the House Vex sneakiness and relishing in _mostly harmless_ treachery to make it not weird. Not like, coat-of-arms incest or whatever. I love that I'm looking at the human mirror of myself and wondering what I look like naked. Wait. That's stupid. I plead heart attack the fifth, your honor."

Lena laughs, wiping snot on her hand.

"I love that I'm looking at someone I would have been honored to take into my arms in the Eye or Rao temple at midday and say 'this woman is mine. we complement and support each other and each has something just a little bit new to the union' if it were my last breath to do it. I love that I also can support you. That you're not perfect. That I don't have to be intimidated that your life is as sparkling as your resume. Because mine sure fucking ain't."

Kara phone rings.

"Here," Lena says.

_Hmm._

She pushes speaker.

"Kara, I do not like being naked, covered in candle wax and _alone_ in my bed when I wake up. What the fuck took you so long? Did Luthor...that grabby little, greedy, not like she doesn't have a fucking _stable_ of fillies roped up in that red room and can't I have one thi-"

"Cat, nice to hear from you," Lena manages before Cat goes quiet, dead quiet and Lena cackles, eventually sliding out of her chair. "There was a medical thing, Kara's resting, she looks forward to seeing you."

"I think she'll come to dinner, Kitty."

"I hate you, Kara."

"Cat," Kara replies, even and hard. "Do you truly wish to speak to your lioness that way? I do have some ideas we greenlit but haven't tried yet."

Cat squeaks and hangs up.

"Lioness, huh? Thought you were her assistant."

"I am, actually but she hired me and then the next day came to me with an NDA and basically asked me that _if_ something developed, we agreed it would be OK."

"Did it?"

"It was my hope, too. Have you _seen her_?"

"How'd the assistant end up domming?"

"Cat is held together by tape, bandaids, pride in her looks and her courage. She is only able to domme Stacy and that's just because Stacy is literally a nymphomaniac who learned how to make it her _weapon_ so she'll take a pretty lady being pushy just like she'll take pushing back. She also dug out my ex-college nemesis and basically threw her at my knees. So that was sweet."

"How'd that go?"

"Stacy can unlock anything with genitals and libido, especially working with my other sub, Harry and Siobahn, she'd just defaulted to being bitchy because it never felt safe to be vulnerable."

Kara nods at the chess set.

"I think...Hmm."

"You're the Queen, the leader. Jess is the King, not cuckold _per se_ but the lookout, uninvolved but allied. The Argentine strip steak with lighting bolt-blue eyes in the hidden room over there is the knight, Beta, if you will. And the Asian punk with the piercings who must have _really ticked you off_ and for fucks sake _someone eat that girl out or turn up the vibe before she pops,_ she is the pure sub."

"For me, Cat's my knight, Winn, sort of but mostly because he takes turns entertaining Stacy or Harry and screening gawkers. Katie in art is my King because she and her wife are running building-wide mind games for the price of clothed lunch selfies and the occasional bicep squeeze."

"Here's my indecent proposal, Lena."

Kara manages to sit upright enough to grab the chessboard.

"I'll be your black queen. Be my white queen?"

"I'm...I'm..." Lena stammers. "Not good. Not pure."

"How many people have you killed in cold blood, Lena?"

"Three. During my slave-moon raids."

"So not in cold blood, but in combat doing a good deed with no choice? In murder terms, zero? Yeah, sorry, babe, but you're white queen."

"Lena. I can't carry the continuation of my species on my back and pretend that I'm some moral paragon. Survival is _messy_. Survival is being _pushy_. Survival may well be attainting Kal before he does anything else _so stupid as to endanger my race, shunning my own nephew_ and _making it really odd with Lois_ because she and I are like, platonic fuckbuddies or enablers or some crazy shit. You are so much purer than I in many ways and I say that with knowledge of the government's entire, G-Rated, "nearly put me off sex its so boring" file on you. Lillian's ghost in your head is not a crime, Lena. It's trauma and I will carry you o therapy daily or make a hut on Everest or whatever you need to heal. The work you've done, tangible, on this planet?"

Lena just shakes.

"Your good work dwarfs mine."

Kara opens her arms and Lena lunges and Kara holds and night passes.

* * *

**The good news is we're at the top of episode 1x06 at this point!**

**I count that by plot, not characters introduced. I want all my gays in the same room, please, now.**


	21. Red Blood, Blue Skies, Green Light (Part 6)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where just seriously, never, ever, ever fuck with Lois Lane, that's like the suicide-by-cop of the DC Comics world and Lois Lane needs a word with Little Danvers, Clark owes Kara, and there's a chess analogy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I truly hope I don't offend anybody with Clarissa here. I wanted to show someone navigating a complex self and her religion without either making her simply "be miserable for God" or "it was 4,000 years ago, I do what I want" or cherry picking easy to follow stuff. So I sort of used the old "two Jews, three opinions" line but as her way of balancing her wants to follow what she was taught with her wants and needs to be who she is.
> 
> I also love people (and characters) who like to push buttons and be like 'oh, yeah, well, lube it first and mind which hole' and their friends are like 'its a fucking shoelace' and kind of worried.
> 
> We'll check back with her later.

**Clarissa Rosen | Houston, Texas  
**Mission Control, Room 84-1, Automated Missions Monitoring and Operations (AMMO) Room C

Informally - "Where Small Projects Go To Die"

"Clarisssssa..."

"Clarisssssa..."

"Houston to Clarisssssa, come in Clarisssssa."

The asshole next desk over is poking her with a pencil eraser. She pushes herself up on aching arms and wipes her hair from her face.

_Why do the ones with stupid jokes always make sure I have coffee and put up with period jokes and join me and one-up me bitching about exes and...caffeine!_

"Mmm, Seth," she groans, coiling her hand around the Red Bull. "Go fuck yourself. Think there's still some ethanol and hydrogen-peroxide cleaners in the supply cabinet for the rocket fuel lab. Splash it in some lotion on and you're good to go. Trying to have a moment here."

"Rawr. It's all _hard_ and _long_ and _girthy_ and I want it in my mouth."

He slides her a clean dixie cup and cracks the can, then hands her both.

"I don't think I could handle that. Leave some space for Jesus, Clar."

"If Jesus can't manage a second coming for _himself_ , he's not worth the price of condoms."

Seth, poor sod, still has the capability to be embarrassed by things. So he swallows a whole Twizzler.

She turns her head to face her monitor. Her baby, her STEREO-A is orbiting the sun, beaming back information, not bothering her, not waking her up...just being a good little probe. Being good to its mother. Innocent little STEREO-B, may it rest in pieces, got plowed into by an alien prison getting chucked into a star, a star _she was busy doing science_ with and that is not _a garbage disposal_ for the most fucking vanilla man in America, thank you very fucking much. 

Now she doesn't have redundant data streams.

"It's 0330 UTC, you ass. Why am I awake?"

"Because here in Texas, that's 0830 Central and you have a shift and your sleep muttering about Daniel Craig _and_ Rachel Weisz was getting like Y-rated. X wasn't covering it. Made me think I should tell them to hire a private investigator...and a bodyguard...and a chiropractor."

Clarissa manages to get the searing, awful, fully necessary beverage to her lips. Her friend in high school who as it turned out, held the whole place in an iron fist, told her that if she could learn to stomach Red Bull, she'd actually probably like the taste of semen. At first she thought that Tina's brains got mushed by throatfucking but actually not. This is way worse and someone sells it commercially.

"Blergh."

"Coffee can actually taste good," Seth reminds her. "also, Diet Coke exists. And like sleep."

She flips him off with her more functional hand and he puts a googly-eye sticker on her finger.

"I hate you."

"See? We have fun together."

"Who the fuck taught you self esteem? I will have words with them. I will throw hands because you are way to much work to unfriend in meatspace. Where's my dislike button, Facebook?"

"My moms. And their ex-Marine so...if you throw hands, apologize after they help you up."

That does perk Clarissa up. Military family, this she knew.

Seth goes to some idiot, cringe church in the suburbs but he also hasn't, like, tossed red paint on her for premarital sex (last Sunday's sermon) or told her that she couldn't have rings on her fingers unless a man bought them for his wife (three Sunday's ago) or gotten on her case or anyone, rally. He helped her find a kosher-ingredient tattoo ink which is really weird because it's an oxymoron, he said. She told him she knew her Jews and when he found one, he begrudgingly told her she'd guessed tradition, the city in Israel, and the official name given for the product to sneak it out.

"Didn't know that."

Seth shrugs.

"I'm not an ogre, Clarissa. Just passing through, like everybody else. Sometimes you feel it, sometimes you don't. Sometimes it's like 'why oh why did I get up this early I think I am going to puke and it's true for jogging' or a deeply fucked up sermon. Church is like a workout that way, especially if you're in the habit of going regularly."

He stops typing and turns his chair to face her where she's decided actually sitting up can wait until her boss walks in. He's being earnest and it makes his whiskers sort of softer-looking somehow and Rachel Weisz' publicist did not get back to her, greedy bitch, there's a lot of sexy there. She can share the goods.

"Know why I don't drink Diet Coke?"

"Bad sexual experience?"

"With carbonation? Yes, but that was actually a La Croix. Queer thing."

Seth has learned now to put small pieces of things in his mouth in case she tells a joke. He just chuckles.

"She, as the nice man at the ER explained, never underestimates the vagina's natural chemistry or it's ability to wreck its owners dignity and life not just her night. I appear La Croix is kosher but all over the map on baking soda contamination and my body is set to 'dissolve intruders' end of the normal range for non-menopausal women. Skin-safe, but prone to science fair re-enactments when provoked by too big a differential."

This time, she has to Heimlich him.

"Thanks," he croaks. "Well! No idea then."

"One of a handful of people who ever saw the original recipe was a rabbi who asked if he could check so he could certify it kosher. Pretty sure it was about his niece's pharmacy in Staten Island putting in a drink cooler but I digress."

Seth nods.

"Solid market. Makes sense. Heck, Staten Island and New York generally, because if the Jewish stores with Orthodox owners don't carry it..."

She chuckles.

"Goyim in a hurry get the shakes, yeah."

"It wasn't, at first. The glycerin which was partly beef extract, by the by, was being mixed with random other streams in the factory. The meat was being handled in an unapproved way, even if it was just melted cow glop. He told them that it had to be separate and _only_ put it through _these_ pipes, in this _way_. Bingo. Seal of approval."

"Diet Coke? Coke Zero? Never checked."

Seth shakes his head.

"Rachel, as I learned during the Christmas volleyball game...thanks for playing along with timing, by the way."

"I wanted to put the fear of me into Joan from engineering. Oh, Jewish girl is playing volleyball, how cute. I'm all tan and tall and judgy, she's like five five and fat, I'll be fine. Best save rate of any libero Smith's ever had, miss 'Oh, I'll pray for you'."

"I loved her just sputtering at the scoreboard, I'll admit. Pretty sure you broke Jonny when he saw _what_ your hips were made of, too. He keeps asking me for your number 'for workout tips'. You have at least one piercing for each of the commandments just on your backbone and hipbones, a six-horned sheep tattooed on, actual size, and I think the horns ended up meeting somewhere that makes _my vagina_ hurt just thinking about needles."

She flounders for her phone. 

"Please, do _not_ show me a picture of that tattoo top to bottom."

"I'm not, I'm looking u-Hah!"

She slides her phone over.

"What's that?"

"It's not some heavy metal thing, Seth. Jacob sheep. Real breed."

"Like, basically a portrait of one's face. Hence it having tattooed wool and a cute lil' tattooed nose, little ears and the ear ring. An ancient breed, rams sometimes have four or six horns, highly distinctive markings. Indications they may have been very common in the entire region in biblical times. The Lord is your shepherd, metaphorically? The one sheep is lost and Jesus in the parable goes after it? His followers were herding _those_ , literally, for clothes and lunch and he could find it because those coats are fingerprint level unique. I based mine on a particularly sexy boy whose sixteenth-century skull is in the museum in Cornwall. His wool brought all the ewes to the yard. Farm's still lousy with six-horns."

"I was in a bad place, and I needed to do something that energized because I was forgetting everything. It actually he mit when a friend back home passed. I was supposed to sit in the dark, pray, mourn. I did and then after, I realized I hadn't been turning the lights on ever, anyway, and the clothes I put on for that were the first time I'd put clean clothes on in too long. Far as the neighbors knew, my girlhood's friend's death didn't lead me to behave any differently than paying the electrical bill the Tuesday before."

"Rock bottom."

"I had a bucket list and 'something wild and wrong' was on it and that summer, when everyone I knew was shunning me? When they called me back and said 'never again' not 'if you do this, this, and this?' I felt like I was dying. That was last on the list, what I was going to do right before dying, so I'm doing it in reverse. So I called you, my study buddy from Starbucks in Camden and made you find the ink and went to the parlor. Did all thirty-six at once, so it wasn't something I did over and over for kicks. Three studs for each tribe, made by some nice brothers who I told I was doing something entirely different with them. The two tattoos you don't know about. And that's why I was fuck out of sick leave when we moved down here and broke for a year."

Seth hands the phone back.

"So, you broke one rule but you paid sort of sideways homage to another and whenever you could, you bought local so to speak and paid it back to your people. Neat."

"Exactly, Seth. Christianity is a religion of what you think, right? I _believe_ this? All you really need is God in your head?"

"Sure."

"Judaism also makes a big deal about _deeds_ , what you _do_. I _believe_ this but also I _do_ this and that _because_ it's expected of me and _honoring_ that is not extra, it's not _remembering_ , it's _core_. Hell, it's probably why despite history's best efforts, we have a culture left. Shared traditions. Habits that we do. Holidays because someone tried to kill us fuck back in the iron ages and they failed so nobody eat until tomorrow, sit quietly and be thankful and then it's fried _everything_."

"Texas Christians call that lunch, fried everything," he teases.

"I've noticed. I think I get pork in my stomach from the fumes in the breakroom. And..."

Clarissa sighs.

"Arent you..."

His tone of voice is like he's poking a bruise, trying to be tender.

"Bi, yeah. But that's again, part of my compromise with my religion. Mentally, I'm probably closer to pan with leanings towards things with boobs I can play with. I can _want_ a trans man or woman or an intersex person and believe me, there's been nights. There's some tangled stuff, probably about other racier tribes ni like, Assyria but I want to take everything at face value and then follow what I possibly can. So ix-nay eunuchs and transvestites, even though it's not the same and many trans folks are neither but it's...kinda rude to ask to check and then it's oh, it's because I'm from a highly conservative religious group!"

"Those passages are what 21st century, Smith College me knows were about something else? Jewish me chooses to honor it. But again, if I wingman them and I don't partake, I'm walking next to the line, not over it and I am helping a neighbor so to speak. It's been girls mostly, I blame my homegrown veggie, potato and beef stew warmed for morning after. I've never gone _there_ with boys and I've never let women strap me or put fingers inside me. Closer to being a virgin, at least in one literal sense. Someday, maybe, I'll be someone's wife and -- probably she -- can take me that way."

Seth is looking at her with something disgustingly like _awe_ right now.

"That's balancing a lot. It sounds like it's fighting yourself rather than giving up or denying yourself."

"Judaism is a thinky way to live, Seth. No matter the tradition. I suspect we've been looking up and going 'REALLY, YOU HAD TO DO THAT?' since before Babylon conquered Jerusalem, let alone before the _shoah_ or Shakespeare choking up Shylock. Genesis 32:22-32 brings us the phrase 'wrestling with God' because apparently that's what Jacob did that day. Literally. In Texas terms, they wrassled."

"Did not know that."

"Then I'm positive you don't know that Israel is 'he strives with god.'"

Seth smiles over at her.

"You're joking."

"When have I ever told a joke around you? Yes! Fine. I do joke but that is the translation."

"I can't be who my community _thought_ I would be so I do as much as I can and what I do I do _well_ and I make myself proud but yeah, if my mother and father ever call up and say 'you did good, Sarah' because we know more about the corona's size, if I did something no one ever had with my education, I'll fucking melt into a puddle of tears."

"Follow as many of the thousands of laws and rituals as I possibly can. Since I can't lock myself in a hut one week a month, I grow all my own vegetables and can them, crop at a time and freeze them, never planting two side by side. Deuteronomy 22:9. Since I can't look at a cute girl and not feel things, when her boyfriend came back and was rough with her, I kicked him in the gut, not the balls. Deuteronomy 25:11-12. I had a moment once were Jessica really _wanted_ to have period sex and it was tempting. Got too close, got messy before I asked her to stop. Leviticus 15:2. We actually broke up because I made her wait seven days. Bought batteries, sent nudes, phone sex whatever. Still, she thought that was a rejection of _her and that I hated women and thought periods were gross._ I couldn't get it across that it was only about keeping part of myself."

"Besides, you cross-nailers were the ones who made shall not 'lie with boys' into 'lie with men'. Sex or no sex, Ruth and Naomi are partners not to mention a feelings-dripping, heart-in-her-hand mess that makes _The Notebook_ look like a one-night stand."

She stares off into the screen, like she's staring past the distance of the probe, 88 million miles away.

"Little Hasidic girls don't get to design, program, and launch space probes. Sarah couldn't. Clarissa can."

He pats her hand.

"Can and did. You did."

"I did."

Seth is a lot more likable by lunch. Too much of his 'Seargent mommas' pork in him to be that and honestly she doesn't want to take him away from a community that still embraces him because someone needs to get to stay with their own faith family for happily ever after. So she'll flirt with him and make him _take fucking notes_ before he meets someone who does it and isn't doing it for joking or training purposes and the little lamb gets hurt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> STEREO-B is really a failed space probe which, along with still successful STEREO-A, studies the sun's corona (the burn-y part, but eh layer at the outside).
> 
> The REAL question is why did I spend a whole chapter with no mention of any of our current characters, no sex, and only the passing reference to Fort Rozz.
> 
> Jacob's sheep are real and they are heavy metal looking. 
> 
> A libero (lit "free" in Italian) is a defensive player in volleyball who is there to prevent the other team from scoring at pass it back. They need to be fast because they're trying to ber a 90-mph sderve to the floor and get it bouncing back up but not necessarily tall. This was 
> 
> Shoah is a Hebrew term for the Holocaust.


	22. Second Week on the Job (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where we go through Kara's second week with CatCo, her challengers, their backers, and all the women, men, technology, positions, toys and kinks that entails.
> 
> Specifically, episode-linked passages will be marked at the beginning of each.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, looking at the episodes, Season 1 is going to be the HARDEST to fix it fic because I do not abide evil Astra even though I love me some complex, torn up Kara. Villian wise, Astra is out and Non decided his was bigger than Lois'. That leaves white Martians with zero narrative meat, two bad Marine corps dudes, Max Lord, Livewire, Red Tornado, and Reactron for villains. Of those, only Max Lord is a multi-episode arc.
> 
> Shall we?

* * *

**Season 1, Episode 6 - "Red Faced"**

* * *

**Kara Zor-El | National City**

This thing is not much past a drone tech-wise in some ways and scary in others. She couldn't get her fist through the shell but he propulsion is turbo and scramjets, nothing more than a fighter plane. The frame and the armor are vastly ahead of the engines but the offense are somewhere in between. It's not remote-operated because it can react to _her_ which a radio wouldn't be able to communicate in time, let alone the human operator react to. It's got a US Air Force marking stamped on something under the thinner parts of its anti X-Ray vision shell. 

Kara pivots to let loose with her heat vision and the robot pursuing her twirls out of the way, not quite clearing so choosing to deflect her shot. Straight towards a preschool, deflecting energy meant to annihilate this robot. A robot that already took a fist to the face with enough kinetic energy to be the equivalent of Hiroshima bomb.

She has to go superliminal to beat the energy to the ground. This robot is really starting to piss her off and she is not real happy with its programmer, either. A Pentagon programmer made it yet it just decided these tykes were acceptable collateral rather than taking the blast full on.

That's how she finds herself trapped in a zero-G sphere filled with a soup of her vision's thermal energy, some thoroughly annoyed antiprotons, wrecked playground equipment, sand, superheated carbon that was sand and then for a moment was glass and charred bits of diapers from the trashcan she plowed through. Because if those molecules had been annihilated when her body exited the warp stream back into normal space, it would have been too damn easy.

_I guess faster than light does work._

"You okay?" a little girl asks.

"Spiffy!" Kara replies, giving her a thumbs up as the field starts to weaken.

"I always warp myself into the ground so I get there before the lasers do so they can hit my chest. For fun!"

The little girl giggles and skips off.

_Kid's cute._

The field fades, most of the rubble vanishes into wrinkles in space and time and Kara gets to her feet. A gawking teacher stands, her box of juice boxes tumbling everywhere.

"Supergirl, hi. I didn't know...I...did I miss a special guest day?"

"What? No, um..."

_Their kids, they don't know they were almost cooked. Don't need to know that can happen if I miss with a shot with that much juice. I didn't know deflections like that were possible. That makes things tricky going forward._

"Just," kara laughs. "Mondays. Bad guy behaving badly, had to keep him away from you guys. Although now I realize I definitely should be doing those outreach things."

She bends down next to a coppery skinned girl whose smile makes Kara want to do everything for everyone everywhere just in case not doing that might make this girl sad.

"Remember, if you're really brave and believe in yourself, you too can go faster than light with your face," she tells her, tapping her nose.

"But try not to. Safety first!"

"Kids, I think what Supergirl mean-"

Kara takes off, her courage lifted by cheers far more than her powers.

_Had to get out of here or I'm going to ascend the lot of them just for being so cute and I should be a bit more selective with the Risen Krypton project._

"All right, red, knobbly and chunky, let's go."

The engines are low tech and going by its tactics it's not allowed to lose her or lose the advantage of civilian bystanders. It's been willing to stay to the edges and the edges of National City is 153 miles in circumference and the metro is nearly three hundred. She's going to use that.

=====

Cheyenne Mountain has a problem, as fortresses go. It's a mountain. It's fucking obvious. She can spot it from the air before her suborbital arc takes her past the airspace over Utah.

* * *

**General Sam "Hammer" Lane, US Air Force | Cheyenne Mountain**

Alarms sound all around him. Men and women drop behind concrete barricades staggered in the hallway. The doors to the elevator open with a thump. Supergirl walks out, the Red Tornado drone's top half thrown over her shoulder, carrying it like a backpack by its wrecked arms.

"Fourth anti-Kryptonian weapons test this week! A girl could start to take this personal, Sam!" Supergirl calls out. "Your daughters will be _ashamed_ of you!"

This cheerleader doesn't scare him. Nothing was ever hard for her, so she's cocky. It'll get her killed, soon as he can figure out what the magic bullet is.

He strolls back to his office and locks the door before reaching for the phone.

"Defend this facility, men."

She doesn't avoid their fire. She doesn't duck. She strolls. She gloats. Rifle fire off her suit and her face and her fucking perfect teeth like so much popcorn thrown at the TV turning a football game. She snaps her fingers and jerks her head back and forth to a rhythm that he realizes is the soldier's pattern as they time their burst fire and then reload. She pats one trembling soldier on the head like she were a good puppy. She picks up a pen and throws it into his office's glass, shattering every pane in every frame into dust with some kind of chain reaction.

"Fuck you!" Sam snarls. 

He pulls his own sidearm and fires. This, she ducks. It traces her cape he got so close but her hair isn't even mussed. Three walls are missing and in the barracks, there are soldiers screaming and clutching their burned and melting skin.

"Argonian Strong Field inhibitor. Banned in all space-faring cultures. Any other war crimes in your back pocket? We done? Because I should go help the medics with your soldiers whose atoms you just slurried."

He fires again, catching her square in her smug face.

Rather than a charred skull, there's an irritating blonde puffing her hair out of her eyes.

"I didn't way it could _hurt_ me, I said it was a _banned weapon_. Props for the initiative."

She throws another ballpoint and the weapon in his hand is nailed to the wall, his fingers pressed between the shell and the concrete. She slides his hand out between grip and wall, grabs an office chair, shoves him into it, rips the frame of another and welds the arms down around his wrists. It'll take an hour to saw him out. 

"Bad racist. Sit. Stay. Wait here. Some of us believe in being nice."

She puts her foot on the chair and rolls him into one of the control panels. He ends up tipped over, loose wiring tickling his face, watching her stupid, shiny, cherry-red stripper boots stroll away, followed by three and four-legged combinations of those and hobbling soldiers she must be helping to the infirmary.

He'd ask his men to cut him out but they might see a wet spot on his uniform.

When she comes back, no one knows how to react. His soldiers don't call out for orders because, probably, they know he has none.

"You idiot," she sighs, tipping his chair up. "Find a new hobby."

She pulls something out of a pocket that apparently is sewn into the skirt between two layers of a fabric that's a lot thicker in person than in recon photos. What everyone had assumed were pantyhose were shadows cast on the same armored fabric of the same color. What everyone assumed was padding for ego's sake is most definitely not, he learns when she rolls her shoulder and yawns.

She lays out rolling paper, a flat case of dried marijuana the size of a hip flask and some sort of three-sided tool.

"Guy making this, I didn't believe him but this utility skirt idea actually works. Plus it's two pieces. The lower one _can't_ be lifted to an inappropriate degree unless I turn off the power. Keeps my superbits confidential if I ever forget the pants."

"Anyone here like weed?" she calls out. "I actually did bring enough for everybody. Tenth grade, bleachers after home Home Econ taught me that."

"Oh come on! Screw regulations! You're not robots! Boulder is like, one hour that way! Really?" 

Shrugging, she rolls the joint and gives it a quick flash of heat vision.

"More for me."

Sam watches Supergirl light up, scanning the room and her eyes finding him over and over.

"Thing is," she says, after sucking a bit too much. "It's not a war if only one side is fighting. So get a new fucking hobby."

"I did," she teases, wiggling the blunt. "Buds, beers, balls and boobs, ladies and gents. All you need."

"You brought this war."

"No, actually, I brought little old me. That's it. One girl, one ship not longer than an F-16 on the tarmac out there. Superman brought an empty head that's too hard for it's own good and he's working on filling it, so good for him. Dru-Zod brought himself and eleven decorated, career soldiers who should have known an illegal order when they saw one. That should've ended with him in front of the UN with both arms broken and Faora Uh-Hal's lancer trained on the back of his head. Don't know what came over her. She'd done anti-terrorism missions before."

Supergirl sighs, puts the joint in his mouth and blows, forcing the smoke into his lungs. Her eyes are a little bloodshot. Which means she's either crazy or she knows she can get out of here alived even stoned. Sam makes a note to figure out which toxins do and don't affect her.

"General, you pushing this? You starting a war with me? You making me need to protect my race, not just myself?"

"It looks like a hundred and thirty thousand full-grown Kryptonians coming out of nowhere this time next month. Having been programmed from birth in their sleep with military tactics, sparring every waking moment they're not eating and then put in armies _I lead_ in conjunction with the most experienced soldier in the galaxy. Following my orders like the Voice of God herself. It's me calling your bluff. At that point, there's a choice. That's your choice."

"You do something stupid and get people killed, something like, say, nuking my hometown in what you call Plan Weedwhacker, and that's _bad._ And like when children do bad things, there are _consequences_. Then we have to have consequences for the US Government."

"It looks like ruined planes cut to ribbons around their unharmed pilots. It looks like ammo dumps going boom in one big, instant, clean ball of _nothing_ and the guards find themselves shaking off the confusion in the local dive bar. Nuclear submarines hauled out and beached at Norfolk. Armored divisons going out of their tents and finding their tanks used as stones for a Stonehenge recreation. It looks like rifles yanked away and disassembled before the receiver moves back the second time. It looks like fuel depots annihilated because you really need to stuff it with the fossil fuels in general. it looks like fifty years investment in the military-industrial complex being made into confetti without one American flag on one coffin."

"America ceases to be a military power overnight. That's the version where I have the time and the energy, and the pity for you to have a sense of humor. The version where we're preventing a threat from happening rather than destroying one. We don't have to kill any of you."

"Or!" she calls out, as if every person here hadn't heard everything. As if everyone here is doing anything other than watching her. "The easy way!"

"You stand down. Get a viagra prescription, finally man up and come out. I don't care how. Now, they're accompanying me while I walk my dog. We educate them to be cooks and restaurateurs and craftsmen and teachers. They become militia in case you go off your meds again. We relax. It looks like the flag of the Republic rising over the South Pole because that continent is fine by us and useless to you. It looks like a ninety-five-mile long, nine to seventeen-mile wide battleship hovering over Pearl Harbor doing nothing. State security detail because I wanted to visit Hawaii to swim with the baby blue whales. It looks like me going out on a date with Kryptonians you have no idea fucking exist and if you throw the 82nd Airborne at us to clamjam me, you're going to need a field hospital that specializes in kicks to the balls and a national cemetery for their egos."

She makes another and lights it.

"It looks like my dick is bigger but I'm not trying to fuck you so it shouldn't much matter, should it? It looks like me doing what I want because I can and just ignoring you because fuck you and fuck not scaring the big strong manly US military _when you're scared of the fact that I have a vagina_ and you know what? _I'm not responsible for your insecurities!"_ she bellows.

"It means fuck playing keep-away with your robot than nearly killed fourteen little girls today! Next time you do something like this, I'm treating it as a terrorist attack. the only reason it wasn't is that I put myself in the line of fire for those kids."

"And General, the Republic didn't _negotiate_ with terrorist organizations. We treat them just...like...you...do."

She walks back over to the robot, does something with her hand that looks a lot like something they have footage of the Flash doing during his escape from the labs, and pulls a black sphere out _through_ the armor.

"Oh, and quantum-fractal power cores are big girl toys. Have to hit the bushes and see what cretin sold this to a human without checking their science chops."

She puts her boot on the robot's face and grinds seventy billion dollars of experimental ceramics flat like putting out a cigarette. 

As she walks by the door, one of the airwomen approaches her.

"Uh, ma'am, hi. Tech Sergeant Ana Santiago," she says offering her hand.

"It's kind of been a _day_... Could I get a hit of that?"

 _"Por supuesto."_ <"Of course", Spanish>

Supergirl isn't looking at him but he can see the shit-eating grin she must have as she puts a fresh joint in the kid's mouth, cups her hand over it and lights it with her vision before walking away.

"Sexy lisp, by the way!" she adds over her shoulder.

Santiago's mouth goes slack. She yelps when the blunt tumbles out and the glowing tip drops into her palm.

"Stow your shit, Sergeant!"

"Sir, yes sir!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to do smaller bites because you should have slightly stoned Kara lighting the soldier lady's blunt like a real gentleman. As a treat.


	23. Second Week on the Job (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary:  
> Where we go through Kara's second week with CatCo, her challengers, their backers, and all the women, men, technology, positions, toys and kinks that entails.
> 
> Episode-centric passages will be marked at the beginning of each as hints and because I don't want to say "Red Tornado" forty times. Seriously, though? Season 1 is the shit. If you're gonna watch one season and nothing else, Season 1. It is a good story, its plot holes are forgivable, it's characters are on linear, not retconnned paths, and so on. It's the best seasons of _television_ in the bunch and it doesn't even have Lena in it. It is also made by a big-three channel, not the CW and with a larger budget. Much of the talent (sans Calista Flockhart) came along but the CW does soap opera in various genres while the CBS range is wider.
> 
> My machete list is Season 1, in its entirety, no joke, followed by selected episodes thereafter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Head Count of S1 Villians**  
>  (thee are the episode leading villains, not like, some moron robbing a bank)
> 
>  **Converted AKA Canon Divergent:**  
>  Astra (she's no villian!)  
> Kryptonian soldiers (loyal, under Astra's command)  
> Indigo (getting that sweet, sweet Astra loving)
> 
>  **Defeated:**  
>  Non (death by stupid)  
> Red Tornado (don't send a machine to do a woman's job)
> 
>  **At Large:**  
>  Banshee  
> Black Mercy  
> General Lane, Major Harper & CADMUS  
> Livewire  
> Max Lord  
> "Master Jailer"  
> Miranda Crane  
> Myriad (the technology itself)  
> Reactron  
> Toyman  
> Vartox  
> White Martians

**Season 1, Episode 7 - "Human for a Day"**

* * *

**Kara Zor-El | National City | L-Corp Tower**

She's had breakfast in a CEO's office twice now and strangely, this one is fully clothed and yet the more exciting one.

Andra Rojas is Lena's ex-girlfriend from boarding school -- take that, Alex -- fell away for the middle decade of their lives and is now her second, her Knight. When she's not disciplining Lena's subs and fucking any one of them she likes unless Lena forbids her she manages to find time to run a family company. Osbidian is a three-quarters of a trillion-dollar tangle of phone, computer, gaming, and digital entertainment companies centered in her home of Buenos Aires. Kara recognizes the smell in Andrea's hair as a dish she once enjoyed in Seoul on a clandestine wandering while Midvale slept. Obsidian VR is headquartered in Busan, she told Kara and her team there weren't able to get it sorted out without her personally flying over so Lena gave her the jet.

Fourteen companies. Three continents. Products made or integrated across every market but weapons, food, and medicine. Larger than WayeCorp and trailing only LCorp in sheer size.

Kara might not get or tolerate Earth's capitalism but achieving that sort of dominance within the system set out before you, sane system or not, is still an _achievement and_ even holding it together when it's handed to you on a platter takes talent. For a second-generation businesswoman like Andrea, granddaughter of a working man, to build from 'regionally-leading' to 'planet-gripping' from father to daughter? Far more impressive to Kara.

This morning, Andrea was breathing _'querida'_ and _'por favor'_ and making pleading, squeaking yelps and semi-human sounds that might be Spanish as Lena took her earlobe in those pearly teeth and pulled while her long fingers skimmed under blouse and slacks and belt, but never entered Andrea. Then Lena slapped her on the butt and told her _'gro ma chroi'_ to behave and wait for food. Not being an idiot, seeing a chance to be ruined by a vengeful Lena, Andrea became a total brat.

In that moment, the sun spun backwards in the sky, it felt to Kara. 

Respect boiled away. Their business' linkages burned. Lena's eyes became greener, hotter, brighter and her voice plummeted in tone and soared in roughness.

She stopped nibbling the ear and she bit into Andrea's neck and sucked a brilliant, plum-dark hickey and Lena plucked a long, stiff nipple through the shirt until she wailed. Now Andrea was prey, getting what she wanted but also getting _too much_ because she didn't listen. Andi was rolling her hips back hard until Lena's chair was rolled back up against the glass. Andi wanted to be the one used, the one picked, the one _who got chosen_ and she was moaning, pleading, sniffling in Lena's ear in Spanish wanting to be the one _tonight_ , the one Lena ravishes _right now_ even if she's not as _pretty_ as the subs or as _kinky_ but she could _please be enough_ just one _last time_ and she should _never_ have left.

The emotional content of whatever happened is obviously raw and cutting Andrea to her long, lovely bones. Because then Lena wasn't teasing, it was therapy and when she kissed Andrea's head and said _'enough, Andi_. and ' _when you jump, I jump_ ' the feeling in it weighed more than the loss of Lena's touch. Because Andrea came apart, fully clothed, in a soul-cleansing, sobbing, twitching orgasm followed by tiny tremors that lasted for longer than Kara has ever seen a woman go.

Kara nearly fainted watching. She's been winging it with Cat, gobbling down BDSM websites and Lena acts and moves and talks like the phrase 'step on me' was a term specifically referring to her. Fortunately, she came early before anyone else did.

After unintentionally giving a master class in intimidating and then talking a girl off, Lena asked if Kara wanted a tour.

Lena's penthouse is just for show. She sleeps thirty feet away in a massive bed carved out of red-stained teak with satin sheets smeared with lipstick marks and reeking with women's musk and expensive perfume. A bed that could hold a fifteen-woman orgy if she wanted it to. A nest worthy of a vampire queen.

Kara was surprised to find the toy chests contained nothing more than two spools of soft rope, one half a pair of handcuffs -- Andrea sheepishly admitted they never found the other -- a collection of high-end harnesses plus dildos and lube, gloves, and dams any gay woman might have. In fact, every restraint in the place was being used on the tattooed sub, still in her white nightgown, laid out on Lena's bed, wrapping of the rope pulling the cuffed hand over her belly and the handcuffs meaning she couldn't _drop_ the wand buzzing between her legs but if she was in pain, she could have wiggled enough to find the switch. A fancy knot under her arms linked to a length of rope that reached either the bathroom or the table with the food and bottled water.

She was trapped and was in for a marathon but she could tend to her non-clitoral needs, when and if she wished. 

_'You seem surprised, Kara. I find words work better than ropes and anything else, for me, would be supporting the wilder side of Etsy shops. You were expecting the rack, weren't you?'_

_'Suppose I was, yes. It seems, basic. I actually had all of these, except the straps, for a game I played with a girl in middle school.'_

_'Really?'_ Lena teased. _'What game?'_

 _'I tied myself up. I was fourteen, I didn't trust myself and we were both horny. So we were playing how does a Kryptonian make sure she doesn't hurt her lover's skull when she comes?' so I decided that I would tie one leg and one arm so that I couldn't squeeze too hard. I knew I wasn't going to_ hit _her so I needed to protect her from something I wouldn't mean to do.'_

_'That's sad.'_

_'Tying myself up with Brittni was a blast and with her, I learned not to need to. The time I tied myself up for a boy's safety? He got a different meaning than I intended. Disaster.'_

_'Why didn't you just, well, break it?'_

_'Because the whole point was protecting my Brit-Brit so I used rope made from my hair. Which, in our case can retain a lot of cellular properties. So collected and woven and tied that way, I couldn't break it.'_

Lena had hugged her. The sub, meanwhile, was thrashing, glassy-eyed and sweaty and begging, interrupted by little squeaks and arches of the back that must have been periodic orgasms she couldn't avoid or force back as the battery-operated wand hummed happily against her slit, padded by the nightgown.

_'Mistress, please.'_

_'Mistress, the new one. I can hear her. Can I please her for you?'_

Lena ignored the woman, who Kara learned was Veronica Sinclair and she too was in boarding school with Lena -- Kara's daughters, clearly, must go there once they're in school -- and she _had_ been in organized crime. She ran into Lena at a party and fell right back to 13 years old, letting Lena practice on her. Now she is legit, having snitched and paid fines had the intangible wrongs she committed taken out of her hide with orgasm denial and Lena putting her clothes back on when Roulette wanted them off. She working as Lena's double agent in the local branches of the pan-Pacific cartels, triads and so on. 

The punishment isn't arbitrary, either it's about money and the difficulty of rescuing her from a stunt that nearly got her killed. 

_'Fucked from a life of crime'_ Andrea called it. 

Breakfast feels surreal with a clothed Lena, a clothed Andrea, a clothed Cat, Stacy, Harry and Kara knowing that next door there's a woman who's come so many times that she's drained nine bottles of water and three packages of cookies and five bananas since it started. Messily, since she didn't have both her hands to eat with.

The elegantly dressed, pale-eyed Andrea, with the caressing, sticky lisp to her English and the with plump, naturally darker lips and stunning pale eyes has the bite-sized Stacy on her lap and is holding her in her big manicured hands like a cat holding a mouse and Stacy's not dealing with it much better. Harry is leaned up against her and she seems almost _mathematically_ attracted to and entrancing to either. As if the universe needed a test case for 'hot bisexual', the starting point for a scale of measurement, like absolute zero or the speed of light. So it created Andrea Rojas.

Cat likes looking at Lena and Kara can definitely relate. It's been impossible, so far, for Kara to know why Lena attracts her so forcefully. Lena pops from the background. The room is two-dimensional, and she leaps out from it. Everything is black and white, she blazes in red lips and burgundy suit jackets and green eyes.

Lena's physical attributes are difficult to believe, they're so fragile and pale and lovely and bright. Like fairies wove her with threads made of laughter and secrets. Yet, Stacy is too. She has the same ghostly paleness, the rarity to her shade and her freckles, the meatiness of the curves. Stacy is, objectively, the best thing that happened to or came from Ireland, Scotland, or South Carolina. Except so is Lena, since she too is Irish. Harry must have some of that blood in him and looking at Harry is nearly always preferable to the alternatives.

Cat's style with a Japenese designer's bangles on her wrist and her skin tanned and her Italian handbag and her French perfume, manages to be as much about _luxury_ as about being the fashion version of _the fucking American dream_ in a melting pot of elegance. All over the world, people make pretty things and she brings them to put on herself and the confidence makes her stronger. Kara hasn't told her but hand-me-down clothes stolen from slums wouldn't dim Cat's allure compared to the high street versions she buys.

Lena's analytical mind is amazing but Cat's will is equally so. So is Stacy's resolve to find a niche that works for her, to pay her own bills, to never _need_ someone even as she so gladly accepts Kara's wealth. So is Harry's willingness to step out of being alone with a good book, and look into a camera at nine million self-conscious people who want to look better and say _'hello, my beauties, let's get started!'_ in a bright, eager booming voice and have them feel flattered and motivated. To do it for at least an hour each day, six days a week.

"Kara?"

"Mmm?"

Lena chortles.

"Kara, darling. Cat asked you a question."

_Well, I can't answer with another. How is Lena so different from all of my other lovers? So much MORE without being better? Without them being less unique, they all are unique?_

"Dopey," Kara protests. "Robots. Mean, heavy robots and grumpy generals. Flying breakfast back wiped me out. I'm not sure any of my powers are working."

Lena peels another bit off fluff off the scone. She moans.

"Curry's. Dublin, near where I stayed."

Kara nods.

"If you were mine," Lena purrs, low and dangerous. "You'd bring me these, every morning, the first batch when the shop opens."

"Could I wear clothes?"

"Only on the way to and from," Lena teases.

"Uh," Kara bumbles. "I suppose they'd have to take preorders, right?"

Lena chuckles. Cat leans back, sneering. Kara blinks, confused.

"I get it now. I get why Lena just _stops you_ and it's so much more than 'pretty woman' because when the models walk up, half-naked, and try to get an edge on Jack in fashion or put one over on Winn? You gawk for ten seconds and then put them in their place. When the US Women's Soccer team posed for a photo in my office, you just went stiff monosyllabic for a minute. But that's not so bad. This? This is just sickeningly cute how struck you are, my Lioness. It's the domme thing? You want a partner in crime, don't you Kara?"

"You already have people you can care for, like me, and provide for and live with, like Harry and Stacy, but you want an equal."

Kara turns to Cat, stunned.

"You are not insufficient, Kitty!"

"Oh, come now. Not in that sense, in the psychological sense. I only got close once and that was because drunk Kara is puddles of laughs and she _cried_ when I told her I had a girlfriend because she forgot it was _her_. I'm not insufficient but I'm also not challenging, I don't think."

Lena looks at Kara.

Kara looks at Lena.

"I couldn't domme for Lena! I'm not...enough. Of what exactly I'm not sure but not enough."

"I couldn't for Kara, either. There's sort of a click, at least for me. Switch flips, and I can go. I can be bigger, stronger, have more willpower. At least make them think that I can. I can create this image that is larger than life, this fantastical, superlative woman we get off with. If I force it, the illusion doesn't work and it's not fun. It's just comes across as boredom, actual cruelty or snottiness and everybody hates it. If I'm faking it, the sub knows and they see it is draining me to do so. They say something and usually, we just end up 69'ing or most often cuddling."

Andrea laughs, most of the sound going into Stacy's right ear and the resulting shiver but some reaching the table.

"You are a perfectionist, _querida._ That's why Lena sticks closer now. Our little vampire hunts a smaller territory. So that she never has to feel _bad_ if it can't be a game or if it's too much and she needs to be just crying and held and it's Netflix and actually _chill_. Me and Roulette and a short rotation of escorts in all but in the rarest of cases."

"With Kara, I don't feel a click. More like..."

Lena peels off more scone and chews it, thoughtfully.

"A hum, to follow the metaphor. Something and it's strong but something that doesn't push me either way. What I feel when I look at Kara scares me, if I'm fully honest. In Kara's presence, I'm not Lena Luthor or a dominatrix or anyone. I'm the woman she's looking at, and I want to be the one looking at her. I'm not choosing to throw all else to the wind. I forget it's there. I've just gotten beaten every time in my life I stalled or 'um' or 'er' or sputtered so I can hide my shock better than Kara."

"Escorts," Cat asks, intrigued. "Why? I mean..."

She waves her hands in Lena's general direction.

"Congratulations on your face and well, your everything."

"Trust," Lena says, quickly and quietly. "I have to be able to trust them, sub or partner or lover or whoever, that anything that happens in that room is just us, God forbid that I actually have any feelings or fondness because then I can get my heart broken not just my business ruined, and that makes it all the more dangerous. Most of the world wants me to burn on Lex's pyre but well-paid escorts are disinclined to talk and Ronnie and Andi could destroy me but _choose_ not to for whatever stupid reason."

"Oh, _querida,_ never."

Lena's green eyes drift to her lap.

"Trust is everything."

Kara leaps to her feet.

"Lena, take my hand, please."

"All right but..."

Kara grips Lena's hand.

"My name is Kara Danvers. In secret, my name is Kara Zor-El, and I am Supergirl. Welcome to my city."

They shake hands.

"Kara, I'm confused. I alrea-"

Lena's mind crashes and Kara can see it. See the little cursor blinking with the command prompt.

"I wanted to choose to share it with you, actively. Not just pass out and have you find out doing CPR. Choose to trust you with my sec-mmmmm!"

If she had her powers, Kara would have been able to stop Lena from tackling and pinning her to the floor. She wouldn't have done so. 

Lena is on top of Kara and her hands are hungry and there is _so much kissing_ and Lena is _pressing her thumb into Kara's mouth_ and of course she sucks it in with a little slurp sound that makes Lena's hips jump against hers and _how are they still wearing_ clothes and then long, nimble fingers which _have clearly done this before_ slide under Kara's belt, into her slacks and grab her panties and _pull_ until there's a tearing sound and Lena removes a stretched, damp mess and wads it in her pocket.

A trophy.

"Well, ah'll be damned."

"Ha!" Andrea crows. "I saw this coming."

Cat kneels down by Lena.

"So I've learned some things about my lioness..."

"Fuck," Kara gasps. Lena's forehead is pressed to hers and quick, hot, short breaths are shared in the air between them.

"That is the idea, yes."

"Take me, Lena. Make me _yours,_ " Kara demands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I do a 'Kara loses her powers episode' this is what happens.
> 
> She has people who can help her (Astra, etc.) so really, the earthquake -- which I didn't do -- wasn't really a good plot point.


	24. Second Week on the Job (Part 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where we go through Kara's second week with CatCo, her challengers, their backers, and all the women, men, technology, positions, toys and kinks that entails.
> 
> Episode-centric passages will be marked at the beginning of each as hints and because I don't want to say "Red Tornado" forty times.
> 
> Seriously, though? Season 1 is the shit. If you're gonna watch one season and nothing else, Season 1. It is a good story, its plot holes are forgivable, it's characters are on linear, not retconnned paths, and so on. It's the best seasons of television in the bunch and it doesn't even have Lena in it. It was also made by a big-three channel, not the CW and with a larger budget. Much of the talent (sans Calista Flockhart) came along but the CW does soap opera in various genres while the CBS range is wider.
> 
> My machete list is Season 1, in its entirety, no joke, followed by selected episodes thereafter.

**Kara Danvers | National City | LCorp Tower**

Kara's powers, naturally, come back at the worst possible instant and for the best reason. 

Lena's clever, quick, merciless tongue has sent lightning crawling up her spine, slowly, towards her brain. 

When it reaches, she cries out. She has to shove Lena's thighs back, take her mouth off her dark pink clit which hurts more than the knot of plugged up heat-vision she can feel and unleash the sudden, raging surge of solar energy she felt into the ceiling rather than Lena's pelvis.

It turns out Lex was wrong and that material in the wall was not immune to heat vision. Nor were the next two floors of mechanical, the helipad, or the helicopter.

"Sorry," Kara gulps.

"Was it good for you, too?" Lena teases. "I can't say ever sucked a girl off so hard she developed powers. At least, not before."

"Vhoc take me, that was embarrassing. What was that, the 69 of doom?"

Lena pauses, as if she's actually formulating an answer which is _worse_ somehow.

"I think just the nine, actually. If we assume I was the six."

Lena chortles. Kara laughs.

It's all perfect.

=====

Lena Luthor has a dirty secret. 

Her Instagram feed's "no business until coffee" shots of her too-pretty face isn't 'she woke up like this' but instead Andrea and or Roulette come back to bed with a basin and shampoo and face wash that smells like mint and slowly, worshipfully, wash her hair. Her morning starts with ' _querida_ ' breathed into the back of her neck or a Vietnamese poem purred in her ear. The shivering the poem causes means Kara now has 'learn Vietnamese' on her to-do list. Her long black hair is lifted and placed in the basin and fingers card through it slow and lazy and towel and her beloveds blow it dry and then they disappear into the bathroom, together for what seems to be -- judging by length -- actually just a shower.

The lack of makeup works because makeup is an insult to that face.

It probably adds an hour to Lena's routine and it probably adds three hours of tasks completed to her day with the boost it must give her.

Ronnie is forgiven now. 

She finally passed out with a slack-lipped smile and interestingly, all her tattoos but the viper on her belly switched off. Lena explained that body modification is Veronica's thing and debts from experimental surgeries to various parts of her body using cloned tissue and electrically screened tattoos are what sent her into the mob's arms in the first place. Kara carried her to the bathroom where Andrea sponged her down and brought her to Lena's bed and laid her there, face to face. Tucking her in was a fool's errand because even asleep, she was still overheated and kept pushing blankets off.

"Don't scare me like that again," Lena whispers to a snoozing Ronnie.

The building shakes, just for a moment and the lights flicker. Kara's phone throbs in her hand and she looks down.

"Earthquake. Teensy one. Lucky shots though. Managed to disrupt two of the three carriers in town so no cell phones, no internet-driven GPS. Supposed to stay indoors to reduce the number of vehicles on the street," she explains.

"However will we manage?" Cat jokes, nodding from Lena and Ronnie to Andrea. 

Stacy is curled in Andrea's lap, buck naked and out like a light and Andrea has her headset on for the conference call and her webcam duct-taped. Harry is behind Cat, still inside her even. He carried her to the shower and helped her back and then she just shimmied back onto him, sighed, and fell asleep.

"Come here, my Lioness."

Kara gets down on all fours and stalks over, lifting Cat's head and licking a stripe from collarbone to lips.

"Yes, Kitty?"

"Mmm. Lena. Lena should be the one they see. We can be your dirty secrets, the rest of us. I have Carter, it would need to be all or nothing in public. I can't just marry you out of nowhere or be seen with you, or Stacy or Harry more than occasionally. Andrea says she is expected to _pretend_ to be available in Buenos Aires. Lena is the girl of a Kryptonian teenager's wildest dreams. I can tell in how your breath stops when you smile at her. She has four dozen family galas a year. Appear on her arm at more than three or four and you might as well get married and...I see it in how she looks at you. Ask her but I think what would make her feel safer than anything is knowing Supergirl has her back on the streets _and_ in the sheets."

"You're terrible," Kara jokes.

"She's also not exactly wrong," Lena says from her tangle of sheets. "I do have a gala Saturday. Morgan Edge and a few of my mother's friends will be there. Unless I take my bodyguard..."

"It's a date," Kara decides. "Assuming you'll have the wayward Martriarch fo the House of El on your arm?"

"I'd actually rather her than Kara Danvers, if I can pick. I just want to see those bigots _writhe_ when they realize I'm not just gay, I'm with you. Super and her Luthor. Luthor and her Super? Nothing can stop us."

Kara faints.

"Second time in a day, Lena," Cat complains. "Space out these ideas that make her heart grow two sizes with love, huh? You can make an honest woman out of her if you so choose but I need her _stamina_ for all these tawdry side affairs we're having."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, there aren't any good pictures of Lena cuddling the actress who plays Ronnie and Gemma Chan has way more roles for my image harvesting so Ronnie's into body modification, programmable tattoos and...highly enervated implants in...places. Places she can use on Lena. Away we go! Aftercare seemed like a sweet way to explain Lena "I woke up like this" Luthor in my screenshots.
> 
> As we saw in Ep 1, Lena is the one Alex will _know_ Lena is dating. Cat and Andrea will remain top secret. Though since heat vision is eye-color related, and Andrea has blue eyes, who is the green-eyed brunette firing her laser vision into Kara's palm in Ch1? Questions!  
> 


	25. All Elements Heavier Than Iron (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where things escalated quickly and our women pick up the pieces.  
> \-----  
> This arc takes place over the course of one 24-hour period, though overnight. Each scene will be tagged, time-wise, center on UTC (aka Greenwich Mean Time) and will include "Zulu" (military speak for local) time. They will be told in a non-linear order for suspense purposes.
> 
> It's also where things break HARD with canon for S1, at least for a while. The medics are going to be removing bits of canon like shattered glass from the faces of dazed bystanders.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had Siamese cats. You can totally have a conversation. They'll give you five or six different meows over the course of a couple sentences and we stupid humans understand exactly none of them and they're very patient with us. 
> 
> Smoky is basically the cat I had from kindergarten through the first semester of college and losing her broke me. She is the reason I am a too-tender and often weepy animal-loving mess. Her nickname was "The Empress" because she slept eighteen hours a day and was not having our shit and meowing orders at us the other six.

**Clarissa | Houston | August 8th, 4:54pm Zulu, 9:54pm UTC**

Smoky comes over the instant she's in the door, swishing her dark tail high. She's had her three days from a shelter in National City that had a nationwide mass-adoption of pets rescued by Supergirl. Not because of some disaster, either. Supergirl took it upon herself to rescue, bathe and feed every stray animal in National City three Sundays and drop them off by the rented minivan at the local shelters. A barrage of funds from anonymous donors and land purchases upstate turned struggling shelters into the owners of sprawling no-kill farms and converted barns. Converted barns with each nail driven by a handheld hammer and caped with Supergirl's sigil. This morning CNN noted that there hasn't been a single arrest for animal cruelty since and surrendering animals is at an all-time high. Supergirl may just have _eradicated_ a crime and by mere implication of consequences, it seems.

The Siameses eyes are like ice and her fur is gunmetal gray, almost blue and this particular sub-breed is the 'bluepoint' and no wonder. 

This cat is dangerously close to becoming her new religion.

"Mow." It's a statement like she's saying ' _you are past curfew, young lady_ ' or something.

Clarissa looks down. Smoky has perched primly on her back legs, straight in her path.

"Hi."

"Mowr." Different pace, sounds, length.

_This cat is having a conversation. Annoyed that I'm so unreachable, probably. The website didn't warn me enough about Siameses._

"Has mommy been mean to you? Well, I can see your food dish and your water dish. You are very classy, yes. Just a little crater in the top of the pile. Not even one droplet spilled."

The swishing of the tail stops.

"Maww." This time it hangs, repeating, at the end, and includes the little shake of the teeth that accompanies the sight of a particularly murder-ready baby bird outside the window. Sure enough, there's a nest of baby robins not six feet off the ground. If the ceiling fan incident is any indication, that's a cinch for Smoky.

"You know, that's not going to work on me. You may have been worshipped as a god in Egypt but my ancestors _left_ Egypt, missy."

The tail stops and Smoky lowers to a crouch and her back half wiggles, like it does when she's ready to kill a mouse. It really does look like a weapon being calibrated or a sniper fidgeting the stock of the rifle into their shoulder. There's no room in the budget for layabouts in this apartment, Smoky and Clarissa are both hard-working girls. The difference is that there's not been so much as a cricket in here since she two days after got Smoky and yet, Clarissa, lazy two-legged thing she is, has yet to discover every single thing about the sun.

"You know, I probably should give you a bath..."

There's a tilt of the head and a truly wicked hiss.

As suddenly and forcefully as she came, Smoky launches off into the bathroom. There's an exclamation of surprise and Smoky zips back in, leaps from couch to curtains and proceeds to do some kind of 'fuck gravity' maneuver sideways along the wall right out of the Matrix until she's on the top of a six-foot bookshelf. Smoky's eyes are still trained on the bathroom and in the dark shadows, they're reflecting slightly, blue as ever.

"Hello?"

No one answers. Her cell phone is not charged, she doesn't have a landline and not a single thing looks out of place. They didn't hurt Smoky and if they were planning to do something to her, Clarissa reasons, they would have been by the front door, or the side door, not tucked away.

Her options are to try to extract her valuables and run -- which means getting that cat down and putting her shoes back on -- screaming for help which means one of six trucker hatted male neighbors with guns bursting in and there are sexual predators who scare and disgust her less. 

_Just because it's Texas, you don't have to buy a gun, I told myself..._

Stopping in the kitchen for a knife and the sharpening block, she approaches the bathroom. She toes it open so that she can see everything the door reveals as soon as it can see her.

Her bathtub is filled more than halfway and packed with all the ice from the fridge. Sprawled in her bathtub is a woman who fires every queer cell in Clarissa's body. Her black hair, slightly curly and sweat matted and blood-streaked is short and close-cropped. Her arm has been peeled out of some kind of metal shirt -- armor, maybe -- and even half-unconscious, her triceps are as stiff and flexed as Clarissa's calves after cooling down from a set of lunches. Her nose is straight and substantial and her skin rides the edge between a tanned white girl and a stronger, truly ethnic shade like Latina or Middle Eastern. 

She ripped open all of the tampons, pads and gauze packages and there's a maxipad on her torso under the water and a torn in half tampon jammed into a divot in her forearm. She says something but for all Clarissa can tell, its flute music not speech.

Clarissa bangs the sharpening stone on the sink and the woman startles from her dazed state. Clarissa points the knife at her, points it away, and lowers her hand to the laundry basket. The woman nods, relaxing and it works. They're not going to kill each other and somehow, they've communicated this.

Not a murderer. Sexy. Strong. Semitic good looks. Basically, she has a wounded, female version of David after the battle sprawled in her tub and it's a bit much for a good Jewish girl going through a dry spell to deal with after a fucked up workday.

The iPad she spent entirely too much on is on the floor, cracked, with the web browser pulled up.

"Oh, come on!" Clarissa complains.

The woman makes some sort of hand gesture -- sign language? -- as if she's apologizing.

Clarissa picks up the ruined iPad -- easier to look at the consuming thing she doesn't want to fuck -- and examines it. The aluminum is dented in a pattern that looks like a hand-squeezed it and the breaks in the glass are circular and fingertip-sized.

The web browser is in Google Image Search's new textless mode. Clarissa had been trying it last night for shits and giggles. Click on the image you want, zoom in, tap something and it zips out and finds other websites that have the same image. She had been looking up a particular type of gin and nearly swallowed her teacup when it apparently turned up in a high-end porn set and she had to mash the back button.

Now it's on something about a fish that was caught near San Diego. Some sort of mutation.

"You were trying to find something but you didn't speak the language so you needed to point. Good thing I left this here for you. Wish you hadn't smashed it when you got frustrated but...we all do things."

"Let's see. How about I touch, you help?"

She taps the back button a few times and holds her finger over one of the options. The woman's hands -- not entirely smooth, not scratch either and more like once-sanded wood than silk -- close over Clarissa's and move her finger.

"There, huh?"

She taps it. It's Supergirl's crest, fan art from the look of it. The images flip to related images and it goes porny even faster than the gin did but at least eight of them aren't hand-drawn images of Supergirl bending various probably-self insert characters over things. Her new friend's hand swings her own to the left a little.

"Scroll, OK...there. See? We make a good team."

Scroll again.

Now there's a YouTube link, something from Supergirl's just launched channel that has so many videos in it that some of them must have been pre-filmed. Not enough 24-hour days for this much rough footage, let alone this much crisp, sizzlingly produced stuff. Given the fact that most of it is shot in what looks like a home streaming room and she's wearing a blue shirt with the sigil painted on it, she must have been stacking it up for a while.

The woman presses her finger forward so hard Clarissa worries she'll break it. The video plays.

* * *

**Welcome back to Momentos of Krypton. I'm Supergirl. Yes, _the_ Supergirl. I put this channel together because well, I'm it. Last one. Superman is...well, he came here when he was a baby and I didn't. So he lived Earth and I lived Krypton until I was a teenager. I suppose I miss it more for that reason. It's why I'm doing all these videos. Get it out there so you can enjoy it.**

**This one is going to be a bit more meaty than usual. We're going to an intro to spoken Kryptonian. Well, spoken Standard or Kryptohavli which was a unified planetary language. It was one that you know everyone in the room would speak but in that same room probably ten other local, religiously-linked, regional or alien -- as in, from other planets -- were spoken.**

**This is vocab so if you haven't done my previous video on mouth exercises, you might want to pop back and do so. It's a tongue workout the first few times. Not harder. Just different than all human languages I've run across. There's a link in the bottom to some free software you can use to check your work against my samples.**

**Also this video is six hours long because I like to talk about home so if you want a stripped-down one with only the words, there's one in the ALT playlist.**

**As always, if you enjoyed it like, subscribe, and be your own hero...**

**We didn't have apples so: this is a _torvh_ fruit. Sweet, crunchy. Close enough. Apple. Torvh. The 'upper' syllable comes first, always and that's 'to' in this case but you have to sort of gulp and put the 'rvh' together before you're done. Glue it all together with a quick 'o' at the start of the lower syllable, 'rvh'. **

**Dual phonemes. Took me a while when I landed to figure out people weren't holding out on me because languages seemed like half-words, not whole words.**

**So: Apple. _Torvh_. Great! Excellent job.**

**Baby. Baby is 'us'** **for a boy or 'is'** **for a girl 'aos' for neither of nonbinary or similar. Most of our gendered words had a third option.**

**Baby. _Is._**

**Side note: that baby in the sketch is wearing House Vex robes and her mom is wearing House Zod robes. Usually, that would indicate adoption or agreeing to name the baby in a different house than her parents. It's a sketch of...I guess it's a sketch of the family I could have had. In case you were wondering, I'm pansexual and honestly, given what a big flirt I am, I don't get how people read me otherwise but back home, we were farther along. So someone approaching you that way didn't really have to be afraid of pushback. People kind of 'assumed' a compatible orientation unless they got turned down. Pansexual until proven innocent, I suppose. Anyway.**

**Cat. Closest we had was these little scamps. Long, lean, grouchy, walked on the back legs, pounced with the front. Kept in houses to keep pests out. Bratty. Basically, little dinosaurish things that behaved like cats. _Talaqs_. Lots of our native species were lizards or lizard-like I should say. We were one of l think nine surviving mammal species. And yes, before anyone gets all weird about it. I am a mammal. Save you the trouble of wondering and save me flashing you and getting demonetized.**

**Cat. _Talaq_. Just like before it's Tal and then 'aq' but you want to roll the 'l' to join the syllables. Tal laq. Tallaq. Talaq! Great.**

**Dog. These, we had. Exactly like Earth dogs. Amazing.**

**They look almost exactly like an Earth sled dog. That one I photoshopped for funsies so it had a collar and a little scarf.**

**They were domesticated in the far north, way back for military purposes so the word comes from 'war' and 'fur' and 'animal' because they were furry and animals and we used them as trackers and sentries in war. I guess we were less creative back when. Ready? Great. So _zugiv_ is war and _khighi_ is animal and _glahs_ is fur. **

**So _khiahzu_ or 'animal with war-fur' in the old books but since _zugiv_ is 'honor struggle' with _giv_ being the struggle, and more recent archeologists think _khigi_ is 'clothes of hair ' we think it's more like 'the animal clothed in struggle'. Badass, right? **

**Dog.** _**Khiahzu**._ **Great. Go hug your _khiahzu_ and I'll be here when you get back.**

* * *

Her finger is dragged back to the start of the video. Clarissa restarts it.

"Apple," the woman in the tub intones, very slowly and carefully. 

"Torvh," Clarissa replies, cocking her head at her visitor.

Her visitor shakes her head and opens her mouth wide, as if so Clarissa can watch.

"To"

"-orvh," much faster, and containing but a scrap of the 'o' and starting farther forward on the tongue.

"To-orvh. Toorvh."

A shake of the head.

" _Torvh_."

Clarissa was positive she left the 'o' out when she tried again but her visitor beams.

"Right!" Clarrisa mutters. "Learning a new language with a butch alien who's injured and lying in my bathtub. Just Tuesday..."

=====

When they get back to 'baby' on their third pass, something changes in her visitor's vivid green eyes. She taps Clarissa's finger, hard, on the screen.

"Ah! Easy!"

"Zoom? Uh... _Rrosh bim_? Go towards?"

The visitor nods. Clarissa zooms in, then looks at her strange visitor from another planet. The nose, the eyes, the hair...the fucking symbol on the woman's jet-black armor she hadn't spotted before. It was all over the news this week for the memorial of the Metropolis attacks because of _course_ they include a good villain rant when possible but she's not exactly getting a 'bow puny earthlings' vibe off this one.

"That's you, isn't it? The mom?"

Bursting into tears, it appears, is universal. It's a long while, nearly morning, before they get back to the video.

"Clarissa," she says, tapping her chest. "Clarissa Rosen."

"Lyta. Lyta-Zod."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tell me that you honestly thought I could keep this sort of kapow plot point back from you for more than like, four chapters.


	26. All Elements Heavier Than Iron (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where things escalated quickly and our women pick up the pieces.  
> \-----  
> This arc takes place over the course of one 24-hour period, though overnight. Each scene will be tagged, time-wise, center on UTC (aka Greenwich Mean Time) and will include "Zulu" (military speak for local) time. They will be told in a non-linear order for suspense purposes.
> 
> It's also where things break HARD with canon for S1, at least for a while. The medics are going to be removing bits of canon like shattered glass from the faces of dazed bystanders.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This happened before the scene in Part 1

**Lyta-Zod | Solar Core | 03:11am UTC (on Earth)**

(all dialogue either Ajaktanii or Krpyohavli) 

Jinda Kah Rozz watches out of the viewers of the prison ship, sitting on the corpse of a guard like it were a queen's throne. Six other corpses kept moving by some parasite she has bred, surround Lyta with corrosive tipped-spears. One carries a probe with what looks like a fatter, nastier version of the wormlike beast.

"Again."

The witches' servants jam the probe into Lyta's side again. Lyta crunches up as much as she can in the shackles and the beast snaps at muscle it cannot break and finally swims back into the chamber.

"Not yet, worship..." the corpse hisses.

"Where is the landing site, little thing? I know you have memories, however slight because I ripped them from you before you closed off. Cold and wet. If that didn't describe the those vermin's entire little hole of a planet, I wouldn't bother keeping you alive."

Lyta sucks in a breath to replace the spear in her side.

"I am a Zod and we are the rocks of the people. Craftsmen and watchmen on Rao's fortress. Rocks do not _bend,_ witch."

The wizened old thing has kept alive by her unnatural powers and her spite for eons. Now she has the full might of Earth's star soaking into her body and soon, there will be no more killing her than there is shattering gravity. Already, wounds Lyta gave her this morning are leaking energy, like cracks in an egg filled with light.

Lyta got no better when they hauled her out of her casket. What felt like years of pain flicked through her body in a few breaks as she struggled to escape the ship. Her bones ache, having grown faster than they should. Her bleeding cycle flicked by over and over and blood was replaced quick as it left but the thirst of the thing is maddening. The muscles of a grown woman are being led by the mind of a girl used to half as many and but for that, Rozz would have died at her hand. 

"Rock do break, though."

"An honor to break and die for my people, those I love intimately and those I love as we love all Rao's children. If I die, you learn nothing."

"I'll take it anyway."

Lyta scoffs.

"Look back at your scanners. Do you see who stares back at you on their transmissions? Who stands as their heroes? Forget the other defenders, the ones you have no idea about. The ones who could be mightier than you for all you know. Those are Els, madwoman. If you think mutant abilities and half-mindless corpses will get you past _her,_ let alone both scions of the House of El, go and try. I'll get a nap in while you die. Your only whiff of victory is my betrayal of them which you WILL NOT HAVE!"

Jinda Kah Rozz hums.

"I will break her first, I suppose. You both would make lovely slaves in my breeding pits."

This time, Lyta screams when they stab her.

=====

Escape was the easy part. As madwomen do, Rozz became bored and wandered off.

The six guards were nothing. She let them infect her and as they droolingly exalted in their good work, killed them. The probe in her side gave her leverage on one and the metal gave her a way to pry her shackles. 

Getting the creature out was less pleasant. Digging around in her own guts was never a hobby and finally, she had to use her vision to kill the thing inside her. Drilling it from the back of its digestive tract forward and then rip it out, tendrils and all.

Water would be lovely. Sleep would feel as good as Kara's kiss.

She could escape, easily but she has a duty. Zod has made one traitor in living memory. One man who slacked and relaxed on the Code of Shala naka-Zod and if it means killing herself and house, they will made no more.

The prison is enormous and trapped every four paces by some madwoman. Not Rozz, though. These traps have a dark humor that would escape the witch. Turning an emergency oxygen bottle into a spinning, bouncing flame-saw with a voicebox on it yelling 'burn' is not Rozz.

This panel is the first one she has reached which hasn't tried to kill her.

"Ship, you are Kryptonian."

"Yes."

Lyta raises her bloody hand to the scanner.

"Scan and transfer command."

"Warlady Alleles detected. Welcome, House of Zod."

"Thank you. Onboard weapons, engines, and shield check. Nearest medical kit. Hand me a portable console."

The console is materialized on the podium.

"Weapons have been removed. Superliminal engines at nine percent capacity. Coils damaged. Repair needed prior to safely entering warpspace. Subliminal engines destroyed but fuel reserves at eighty percent."

"This is a prison ship, yes?"

"It is Fort Rozz, named for the first prisoner. The war crimi-"

Lyta hits the interrupt button. 

"We've met. Medkit?"

"Attendant drone is retrieving now. Armor and infantry weapons available here."

"Scan my biology for any indication of sublimation."

"Ship does not understand."

"Sublimation theory. The Solar Fallacy. You might have it in your index as that."

 _We are not meat!_ Rozz had ranted. _We do not worship stars just as we do not worship the food on our table! We have forgotten that we are the stars, we are their predators and their masters!_

"Scanning...curious. Your tissues appear to have been replaced with non-standard matter in fifty-four percent of your body."

"Nonstandard?"

"Fluidic, superheated and superdense matter similar to a fusion reactor but on much heavier elements. You appear to be made partly of fusing metals, far heavier than fusing gases and contained in microscopic distortions of space-time. The shapes and functions are those of Kryptonian organs. Cell walls and organ coating and lining contain the energy. The ova in your reproductive tract appear genetically intact, though the egg lining is made of similar energy."

"Cause?

"It appears your cells photokinetic and photoabsorbic cells have triggered a previously unknown function and replicated out to replace the other cell engines in almost all cases."

"Splendid," Lyta huffs.

The attendant holds out the medkit.

"Thank you, drone. Please retrieve me a system-range thruster pack, the heaviest infantry armor available that includes autonomic thrusters and lancer kit, standard pistol-pistol-rifle-sunblades loadout. Short blade pair and long blade. Understand?"

It dips its head.

"Understood."

"Go. Ship, clear it a path."

"Doing so now."

Lyta groans as she injects the second hydration hypo into the wound the parasite made. She melted the first just by bringing it close to her skin. The wound is the only option.

She looks at the painkillers hungrily but that is _later_ when Rozz is dead or she is.

"Ship, options for containment."

"The Coluan hacker Indigo was a former prisoner, serving Astra In-Ze in a pirate kingdom following the crash. She has created a series of fail-deadly traps. In the event one of the following reactors is breached, the remaining energy in the ship's superliminal field will be put into a self-sustaining torus shape. It would not be possible for the inhabitants to escape unless they transformed to neg-energy, neg-mass matter with a superliminal capacity of at least 500 times lightspeed."

"Show me the killzone and compare it to Rozz's little kingdom. Program it the ship to use one percent of its superliminal power to move as fast as possible to the nearest dead-star system before detonation so that the taurus would arrive there in a gravity well."

"Understood. If we use the subliminal engine's reservoirs, we can overcharge internal defenses. Distract Rozz."

"Lovely. Make it so."

"Lady Zod, you are injured."

"I will manage, ship. I fear that if we are successful, this is goodbye."

"Yes. To die for Krypton, I hope a Zod would understand that even for a computer, there is an honor to it."

"Provide me your seed shard, please. A hard copy. I would have you entered into the Honored Dead among the House Itaska."

"You may retrieve that here, on the bridge. Light and shadow go with you, Warlady."

"Easy paths and bright stars, Ship."

Lyta can get into her armor _asleep_ but that's when she's healthy. The ship even took the liberty of flash-forging a house crest. Wind and lightning from the Great Storm, battering the glyph for Resolve.

"Prepare the traps, ship. Eject any and all genetic or clone material aboard in caskets, targeting the following continent on the water-bearing world. Do so _before_ I confront Rozz."

"Remaining barges and starfighters are being loaded now."

Rozz's mad voice rings down the corridor.

"Little orphan girl! We have unfinished business!"

Lyta smiles.

"You are a half million years old," she mutters under her breath. "You didn't know a comm panel from a food dispenser. Let's see if you know a fusion regulator from your own moldy tits."

She ignites the short blade in her right hand.

"Rozz! A duel! As the old mothers did!" she hollers down the corridor.

"Such nobility, little one! Fourteen marks, in my throne room! You may pray to that perverted filth you call a god while you wait."

Fourteen marks, a scavenger hunt across a ruined ship, a fusion explosion at knife fight range and escaping a space-time collapse?

Easy.

Subliminating to some unknown abomination while drifting injured in a star's outer core?

Terrifying.

=====

Senses return slowly to Lyta. 

The witch's screams were sweet as she realized _technology_ had trapped her, not what she calls sorcery.

She is in the outer corona now. The ship's last thruster pack got her that far.

The sublimation is maddening. Pain in the wound. Bliss stroking up and down over every nerve in her body. Senses awakening she has no wish to have nor clue how to use.

She supposes those bends in the dark of the stars are gravity.

That little speck of metal has a single, pale gray line leaving it. Pointed to the water-planet.

"Rao, I thank you for your guidance in my dark hours. May you guide me again when my need is great, or take me to your light when I am worthy."

She dumps the last of the thruster pack just when a solar flare hits her. Searing pain and a huge boost.

_Follow the line, follow the line..._

It will be a slow trip, using only her inertia.

If this table of human chemistry is to be believed, the metal in her veins is mostly chromium and aluminum while xenon, argon and a gas they call krypton fuse and burn around it. No doubt Kara's genius uplifting their race and in their gratitude, naming a 'noble' gas for her home. Naturally, the strongest metal they ever describe will be called Karainum.

All but the gases making her up are heavier than a yellow star would forge in its guts when it died.

Her suit has been analyzing her transformation and for her own amusement, she took the human -- they are humans, it seems -- broadcasts on the data crystal. There is a recording that amuses her. A grim, female warrior protecting a baby-bellied, pale white beauty with gentle, timid eyes. 

Els are not timid beings but if Kara's baby growing under Lyta's pampering of its mother is to be Rao's gift to her, she would suffer Rozz's torture once for every star in the sky.

She replays the movie in her helmet at half opacity.

> _**"If I die, I die historic, on Fury Road! Shiny and Chrome!" The warboy shouts.** _

Worse epitaphs have been had.

She follows the line, from a satellite to a new arc pointing to a city on a heavily populated continent, near a gulf in the ocean. It goes into a massive building that seethes with other such transmissions. Might be a fortress and no sense in the risk.

From there, the line thins and points to what must be a dwelling of some sort. Food is grown -- are those live plants? Rao be kind! -- out back and her new, maddeningly complex and powerful vision makes out a woman stepping out of a vehicle a hundred paces away, heading for the front door.

Easier to beg hospitality than be taken prisoner again.

She changes her course and lets gravity's embrace bring her down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Code of Shala naka-Zod is the code of the founding mother of their house. Both a legal code and a warriors code, it demands "in peace, vigilance, in war, power, in suffering, resolve, in the capture, silence and in death, honor." laying out a code similar to the _bushido_ code of the samuari although one that does not specify ritual suicide but instead a 'take them with you' attitude to a hopeless situation.
> 
> House Itaska is the house name of all truly self aware AIs.
> 
> The Great Storm is a blizzard that has covered the whole South Pole of Krypton for multiple geologic periods. The House Zod citadel is built in the eye and their warrior's rite is to spend a day and a night with nothing but thermal clothing, rations, and light before returning home. Especially worthy ones -- like Dru-Zod or Lyta-Zod -- distinguish themselves by returning with some bauble like a crystal exposed from the rock by erosion.


	27. All Elements Heavier Than Iron (Part 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where things escalated quickly and our women pick up the pieces.  
> \-----  
> This arc takes place over the course of one 24-hour period, though overnight. Each scene will be tagged, time-wise, center on UTC (aka Greenwich Mean Time) and will include "Zulu" (military speak for local) time. They will be told in a non-linear order for suspense purposes.
> 
> It's also where things break HARD with canon for S1, at least for a while. The medics are going to be removing bits of canon like shattered glass from the faces of dazed bystanders.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are now in a linear order for "All Elements Heavier Than Iron".

Clarissa | Houston, Texas.

Einstein said "God does not play dice". Stephen Hawking said "He not only plays dice, he throws them where they cannot be seen" and that seemed a lot wiser an hour ago. As far as King James knew -- gay old bat he was -- it went 'The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want" and "He created the Heavens and the earth and all the animals on them" and so forth. Adam and Eve and something fucking _better_ have been left out about Cain and Abel's wives or she's the descendant of some Game of Thrones incest bullshit.

Now, there's a problem. An alien who definitely was not created in the Garden and who is wearing a necklace that goes back past the Paleolihtic and she doesn't doubt it. Claire had always been able to balance science and religion by putting them in different boxes, so emotional and rational thoughts lived in different places. 

It helped that people _could_ be such a young species if it's just having dinner with them or playing board games. Seth isn't 4.5 billion years, old though some of the stuff in the break room fridge no doubt is.

Now she's sitting gawking at a woman who just shatters any but the most half-hearted attempts at literalism and who would be heretical except she's so fucking thoughtful and if this is a test of her faith it's playing the long game and old age will get her first. This woman who her mind wraps around the science of and who creates such a stew of emotions: admiration, pity, awe, curiosity, amusement, _safety in her presence_ that the boxes are leaking and their contents mushing together.

With really distracting muscles and intense, emerald gaze that follows her like will-o-wisps on the moor. She is keeping company while Clarissa is sitting on her floor with for her evening _siddur_ and is watching her so closely that she had to open her eyes to feel at ease that it wasn't spooky staring just staring with spooky pretty eyes. 

Lyta isn't moving or speaking or interrupting her in any way. 

No question she was going to call in sick when she woke in her clothes from the day before with Lyta's naked body pressed to her back and her arm clamped over her, protectively, apparently having been carried to her bed. She has the distinct impression Krypton has different standards of modesty because Lyta _f_ ucking armored up to get the paper and dropped the worn metal pieces the moment she was inside. In the home, there is 'trust' she said and this small home is a 'sanctum' not a 'citadel' and she felt lacking her armor was fair as a way to lessen the imbalance of power because she did not have her house sword to surrender in a gesture of peace.

Or something.

Carissa can't exactly force clothing onto a superpowerful alien's body and that's just going to be her excuse for the time being. Nothing at all to do with the way her eyes practically water when Lyta does one of what she calls 'Shivo Tahiko' exercises which seem to be Yoga stapled onto Tai Chi stapled onto isometric exercise. 

None of it seemed intended to arouse but there's only so much muscular back, moving lazily in a simulation of a palm-strike at a fraction the speed that Clarissa can ignore _._

At breakfast, they found footage of Supergirl at a recent party with Lena Luthor of all people on her arm.

Lyta bawled and wailed and shivered and after a long time, straightened up.

_'She is brilliant and capable. She is worthy of an El, especially as the prime wife. I could dream but...years passed for us. For me, a half-coma dream state and in one mad rush of pain and for her, more pleasantly. I would not have wished Kara to be miserable for my sake and we pledged as much when we were girls.'_

It seemed hard but it also seemed _over_ like Lyta knew her willpower could keep her in one piece until the hurt faded. She would soldier on and they could be friends and perhaps their houses joined in future generations, a reflecting of the love affair they could have had. Patience and courage and ease of honoring Kara's wishes was part of what Kara had loved in her, she knew.

Then they managed to sort out how Lyta would learn about her new home. 

Reading information was hard because reading can't be accelerated past the scrolling speed and it seems Lyta's brain can take in information faster than the iPad can redraw its screen. Hence, video and audio courses played back as fast as the system allows. Someone made a series of five-hour podcasts about great moments in human history and she set it to 128 times fast forward and blazed through three days of them in hours. Judging by her detailed questions about the misrepresentation of the battle of Thermopylae, she absorbed it.

She found an English translation of the Old Testament on video and watched it at 50 times playback speed. She did this because _'guest of a house must respect its customs'_ and she feels this means learning what an outsider can quickly learn about Judaism, at least the middle of the road traditions.

So when the next few prayers are done, there will be questions and it will be about her faith and it will be by a woman who makes Clarissa think very impure, unholy and stupid things.

=====

Lyta points to something, having scooted close. She keeps trying to correlate the story of Exodus with historical records and it's not as skepticism, Clarissa thinks. It's respect for host and hoping to gift new knowledge. If only it included something about respecting pants but until she's so wet her juices are actually discoloring the floor, Clarissa's going to let this probably-not-intentionally-teasing slide. She deserves a treat.

"This, this was in this area?"

"Yes."

"The pyramids. They are amazing. The grandest ancient structures to service. Your ancestors built these?"

Clarissa hums.

"I'm not sure about those specifically -- they're very old -- and if so, it was not to glorify us. We did it as slaves."

Lyta wraps her up like she was freeing Clarissa from slavery, not overreacting to something that happened 4,000 years ago.

"No one should ever be so wicked. We have burned races from the universe for this crime. Left them imprisoned on their own rock to atone."

"Uh, that's nice. And thanks," Clarissa says, though iron shoulders and _sweet mercy her breasts are springy but they sort of flatten my lungs when she hugs this hard_. Lyta's flesh sort of muffles it.

"The garden, it was here?"

"Likely candidate."

"Sodom and Gomorrah, the inhospitable ones?"

Lyta never really bought the 'because they were gay' explanation but she looked ready to fly back in time and burn the cities again for breaking rules and harming those who _'shared hot meals and safe sleep'_ as they called it on ancient Krypton.

"No idea, but they were big cities and here-ish," Clarissa says, "So someone will find them."

"There?" Lyta asks, surprised.

"Yes, why?"

"There are two big rings, not far apart, near a dead river. Cities, I suppose. Buried under the clay. They caught my eye because they were big but nothing on the surface. I assumed those were buried bunkers and wished to be cautious. I saw them when I was tracing your ra-di-o? The signal."

She pinches in on the screen. She's not only learned how to use it and not break it, she doesn't leave fingerprints. Somehow.

"There and there. The river ran through here. For or five of your miles in diameter. If it was stone not metal or concrete, those walls were three, four, maybe five feet thick."

_Unless there's to other dead ancient cities in the Sinai, she just cracked biblical archeology while sightseeing. X-Ray vision changes everything, I suppose._

Clarissa looks at her guest. Her guest who has been naked for nineteen hours, minus the newspaper thing and who Smoky uses like a cat gym slash heat grate. She has listened to everything she said about her faith like it was God's words and swears oaths to honor _Clarissa, out of Ruth, by daughters uncounted out of the Matriarch Sarah_ and if that doesn't make a girl like a princess being given a knight's fealty in a voice like smoke and dark coffee that is the verbal equivalent of heroin, what does?

"Fuck it."

Lyta tilts her head.

"Can I kiss you, Lyta-Zod?"

The answer is in kryptohavli and it sounds like a purr and those green eyes don't _need heat vision_ to stab through Clarissa's chest. 

They brush their lips together, slow and shy and then she licks forward and Lyta parts for with a soft 'oh' and it all speeds up and _that tongue is powerful enough to tilt my head back_ and its on the _roof of my mouth and that tickles_ and sure enough, Lyta has her looking at the ceiling while her tongue lashes the inside of her mouth and her hands land, heavy and solid, on Clarissa's hips. 

She had clothes but then buttons exploded everywhere and the scraps were up in the air and then they were burned away with heat vision and, _I'm on her lap now and escape is logically impossible so this is where I live until I die_ or until they need to take a snack break. She shimmies forward to feel Lyta's abs and her strangely hot skin on her mound and her fingers are long and grip hard and _she is going to break me_ and this is _everything Lyta never got_ when she was imprisoned and _everything I missed_ in previous girlfriends. Lyta is focused like a laser on Clarissa's pleasure with a look of _rapture and pride_ at her every gasp and sigh and maybe _I shouldn't fuck a woman straight of prison who kisses like I'm water in the desert_ and the hand on her hips tightens and it doesn't hurt because the _way she looks at me_ is too sweet and _fuck bruises_ and now those same fucking _fingers like steel rods_ _wrapped in satin_ are sliding past the waistband of her panties or at least the _half dangling off me like wreckage from a plane crash_ and this will either be lovemaking or getting railed like a punch press and she no longer cares.

"Yes?" Lyta asks.

_Right. Consent. Consent is honoring and honor a religious thing._

A nod and she's speared and she forgot to tell Lyta she didn't want to be deflowered and _which words did I teach her anyway_ and it's all too late and they call it a _temptation for a reason_ and the fingers are just there and _I'm not a fucking handwarmer and if I'm gonna break a law, I'm gonna get an orgasm out of it_ and then it hits.

Consent. At every stage. Consent and caution because Lyta knows how much tougher she is.

"One, for now. Slow. Gentle thursts. Curl up when you're in deep. Thumb," she guides Lyta, "here, across the part at the top. No pressing, just be there."

"Mmm. Exactly." 

The words ' _as you say, my love_ ' in Kryptonian are purred in Clarissa's ear and then there's faster moving and her sex is cupped and lifted to add more pressure and she's trapped between a powerful hand on her mound and one on her butt and the abs feel like almost too-hot bath and her own legs clinging to Lyta like a lifeline. 

Lyta thrusts and Clarissa's breath squeaks out and she lowers her lips to Clarissa's neck and drags and now the screaming is making the cat hide under the couch.

"More. Two. Just a tiny bit harder."

This is what it felt like, revelation and ecstasy and the holy truth and this is why Christians are so into visions of saints and if the trickle of blood or the sudden, forceful splash of juices bothers Lyta, she doesn't say and she keeps going because that makes it all slicker.

Clarissa doesn't have to say it's too much after fuck knows how many orgasms hitting her like car crashes, sending her spinning out of her own head and leaving her dazed and loopy. Because those _fucking green eyes_ can see into her body and are watching intently to be sure she's healthy. She knows already.

=====

Lyta is staring at the iPad when she wakes, her strong brow that probably tastes like _cinnamon or nutmeg or something_ crinkled in confusion.

"I am sorry, Clarissa."

"Don't be," she laughs. "I'm just gonna...regrow my brain for a minute. Didn't you enjoy it?"

"Tremendously, and I thank you for not reciprocating. Service is a high virtue in my house."

"Service. Is that why?" Clarissa asks after a laugh.

Lyta laughs too.

_Holy shit did I just make the usually grim alien knight with the fuck why am I not grinding on those abs right this minute laugh at a joke?_

"No, it is not. You are appealing. Physically, yes but for me, a High House member? The mind is all in a spouse. You are cunning and to navigate a difficult faith is courageous as is being truthful to yourself without misery. Clever and from these texts to your friend, filthy. I am intimidated to think what having your attention will be like."

"Oh."

_Does she always do flattery at thermonuclear intensity? Girl could get an ego..._

"And..." Lyta sighs. "I cannot convert, but Raosim is not so different. There are written, specific virtues and their emanations in law. There are feasts and rules and laws and prayers we say as Rao, the representation of light and holiness travels our sky. Before dawn, during dawn, at mid-rise, at half-set, at set and at midnight."

"So a religion of observance."

"Half observance, half reflection, I suppose."

"Heh." Clarissa laughs. "Take that, mom. I banged a buff space Jew."

Lyta laughs at this, too.

"I will honor this, your law, as I must."

"I literally am too well fucked to get up right now. Can you bring it over here?"

"Of course, _zhutov_." ("mine")

_Oh, that word is gonna give me gynecological issues if I don't get a grip._

In retrospect, Clarissa should have guessed.

* * *

**Deuteronomy 22:28-29**

**If a man finds a young woman who is a virgin, who is not betrothed, and he seizes her and lies with her, and they are found out, then the man who lay with her shall give to the young woman’s father fifty _shekels_ of silver, and she shall be his wife because he has humbled her; he shall not be permitted to divorce her all his days.**

* * *

Clarissa swallows.

"That's...not your faith. Besides, its an atonement for rape. And yeah I feel pretty seized and lied with right now but...I consented...eagerly and repeatedly. I initiated. Pretty understandable to think I wanted fingers. You don't have to."

"If I should wish to? There is tremendous loneliness in being one of a few survivors, Clarissa Rosen. Kara is happy and I will approach her when I am happy as well, so as not to darken her life. If I can choose to lighten my loneliness, I choose that. Unless it pains you so much, I would ease my conscience and repair this oath which I broke. I would swear this to you. For life, as it says. Our marriages were always for life."

Clarissa stares at the ceiling.

"Fuck."

"I should make more of this stew first. Then, yes, if you wish. I believe I will take you as you are, on your back. Then we can...cuddle."

_OK. She totally snuck in more English than I realized._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is fast but Clarissa needs a forever girl and if you think Lyta won't put her whole self into this marriage just because it's honorable, build it up from scratch...you haven't met a Zod.
> 
> I want to see how the respectable, honorable Matriarch of Zod deals with Clarissa's life and particularly, her terrible sex jokes.


	28. All Elements Heavier Than Iron (Part 4)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where things escalated quickly and our women pick up the pieces.  
> \-----  
> This arc takes place over the course of one 24-hour period, though overnight. Each scene will be tagged, time-wise, center on UTC (aka Greenwich Mean Time) and will include "Zulu" (military speak for local) time. They will be told in a non-linear order for suspense purposes.
> 
> It's also where things break HARD with canon for S1, at least for a while. The medics are going to be removing bits of canon like shattered glass from the faces of dazed bystanders.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> STARWIND is the alien-threat portion of the DEO in this canon and predates the metahuman-threat group ARGUS by over a decade. Alex is overall command of STARWIND and officially, the group does not exist outside of a line on the secret black ops budget only six Senators can see that reads [redacted] and there's actually nothing under that. It's called Project [redacted] as a joke.
> 
> They're also funded by Britan, Canada, Australia, France, Argentina, Brasil, China, and other powers around the world. Money goes in and all they need to know is if needed, Agents pop out to defend them.
> 
> While lack of any links except money helps keep them from being detected by Coluan hackers and so on, it also means that the CIA/FBI/etc. are a threat to their US operations.

**Alex Danvers | National CIty | ARGUS-STARWIND Installation 002 - Command Deck**

The condition orange lights spin overhead as Alex reads the tablet Jameson just handed her, giving the high-ceiled space an almost campfire vibe. If anyone asks, that's why there are marshmallows in her hot chocolate which is _officially_ coffee and since she switched the labels on the cans, she has plausible deniability.

Jameson is behind and to her right, like usual. Not like she ever ordered him to, is just his preference.

On the tablet, Vasquez's headcam is split-screened with the cloaked _Skuld's_ overwatch cameras. It's just an ordinary house in Ohio. Electromagnetic bleed says the insides are running enough juice for a hundred power-dampener antenna, an anti-proton cannon, or both.

> _'Third deck clear,' Agent Demos reports._
> 
> _There's the telltale ripping sound of the superheated air around a high-energy lancer shot. Then again and again._
> 
> _'Top deck clear. Two tangos KIA,' Vasquez adds. 'One wounded. Zipped, doped and bagged. Makes three in all.'_
> 
> _'Bottom deck?' she whispers._
> 
> _'Bottom deck? Charlie! Xing, do you copy?'_
> 
> _'Sound off, Marine!' Vasquez barks._
> 
> _The only answer is the sound of violent retching._
> 
> _'Kill site,' Chloe Xing manages, her usually bright voice just a shell. 'Whole basement is a shooting gallery. Females and children. Piled up. Looks like they cut the male's spines and made them watch.'_
> 
> _'Christ,' Demos mutters._
> 
> _'Bravo, Delta, bag anything. Fuck, bag the toilet paper in the cabinet just in case. Ping command for a heavy lifter. Charlie, look for survivors. I'm inbound to you.'_

Alex nods at Jameson. He taps something on his pad and the flicker in the overhead lights indicates the launch rails are firing.

> _'Say again, Lead?' Xing croaks._
> 
> _'Situation like that, weird shit happens. In Sudan, when I was in the Corps, we found two little girls without a scratch on them at the bottom of the pile.'_
> 
> _'Copy that, Lead.'_

"Yes!" Jameson crows beside her.

"Hardly seems like the moment, Agent."

"Outgoing comms. They're still reporting situation green _and_ the spike on the line is tracing a broadcast direction. DC's little toy is generating false footage of normal operations."

_Doctor Cyber to the rescue._

"Metropolis?"

"Where else? Ameritek Cellular data hub."

Alex tosses her tablet down on the table.

"Deniable endpoint in Lex's shell company. Fucking CADMUS!" she barks.

Throwing things would be a bad habit if everything _including_ the coffee cups it weren't clad in heavy, shock-absorbing armor and frictionless materials. It bounces and twirls and slides under desks and one of the more experienced hands lifts his legs so it can pass under his station.

A shaking junior agent comes by not long after, having retrieved it from the ass-end of the room.

"Thank you, Agent," Alex sighs. "As you were."

> _'Command, this is lead. We got two. One female, one neither. Saggi and a Martian, non-critical gunshots to both. Pretty shook. Martian is non-verbal but the Saggi called me a 'pendejo' and she's in a Tijuana soccer jersey so we should try Spanish. Request trauma, medical and suicide watch at the hanger.'_

Alex nods to Jameson. 

"I'll be in surgical, Assistant Director. Doctor Hamilton is my second on this."

"You have command until Vasquez is back. Then I want you on me for intel and advice and her on everything else. Watch footing. Kill unknowns on sight if they breach the cordon. Have someone knock on cabin 62-B. Maybe seeing a friendly, Saggitarian face will help that kid. And see if Consultant J'onzz can get here one the double for the martian." 

"Aye-aye, ma'am."

_Maybe Kara has the right idea. Humans sure aren't making a case we don't need an alien with a riding crop to straighten us out._

=====

What spills out over time is exactly what Alex feared. Someone has set up a lure, kidnap, torture and kill pipeline that starts with Starry Skies Charities and Lena Luthor's Cosmos Foundation and using subtly altered pamphlets, leads to collection sites not soup kitchens. They're grabbing Martians and others who could raise the alarm first.

The Martian girl -- a white -- nearly makes J'onn faint but he pushes through. This girl isn't the camp guard who killed his family. After hours of coaxing, she cautiously melds with him.

"She's angry. Says she swore a _syugh_ oath against Lena Luthor. I think she doesn't know it's not really Luthor's doing."

"What's that?" Jameson asks.

J'onn frowns.

"Abominable tactic. To burn the mind from the inside out and leave just enough to suffer and have nightmares. The victim's body shuts down weeks later after a coma filled with nothing but pain and fear."

"Can you convince her it's not Lena?" Alex asks. "You read Lena when she swore in."

Lena is their only unofficial corporate agent with any actual resources. They can't lose her.

He shakes his head.

"I'm a green. She doesn't hate me, H'ronmeer be kind but she's three generations on. We're all supposed to be dead so she has no reason to _trust_ me either. I might as well be the Loch Ness monster to her."

" _Syugh_ is a high oath? Galactic Unity registered?"

He nods, his eyes still closed and thin stands of yellow energy pouring from his skull to the girl's.

"Little used due to it's barbarism but yes, it is."

"So is an oath sworn upon a House Line. I think I know who can convince her."

Jameson puts his hand on her shoulder.

"Are you sure, boss?"

Alex nods.

"My sister knows we're here. Might as well make her an asset rather than letting her do whatever and cross our wires."


	29. Behave!  They're Sleeping Right Over There! (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where all our ships meet the family and do things in family beds, and hammocks, and treehouses and so on that was less PG-13 than intended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This marks the part of the fic where I'm going to try leaning into more lush language (modeling off Anne Rice) and just smut for like, five pages and so on. Wish me luck!

**Kara Danvers | National City | Fall 2015**

"Sis, you all right?" Alex calls.

Kara swallows. Hard. She knows this hum in her blood. The dizziness. It usually is accompanied by vomiting, screaming in pain and Lena shushing her, holding her close and apologizing. Apologizing like she's some monster, not the only person Kara can trust to experiment on how to deal with Kryptonite.

The rock in front of her is tiny, and scattered amongst others like bird's eggs. Blue. Pink. Red. Silver. Gold. Black. One pearly and shiny, like some deep ocean treasure. The pearly one calls particularly to her, so she secrets it into her suit, nestling it between her breasts and toggling the controls to tighten the fabric and keep it there. The shell is dry but the _feeling_ is of something heavy on her skin, like a cat's tongue or a soapy sponge or Lena's hand, warmed by hot water. Palm sliding over her breast as she shoves her into the tiles.

The green one is so small she can only feel it's bite when she touches her finger to it and even then it's tame. Like a misbehaving cat, not a chemical weapon.

"Kara!" Alex squawks. "Get away from there!"

Alex grabs her in and tight hug and walks sideways, taking Kara with her. She kicks the container's door closed and the other agent -- Jameson? -- latches it. Kara shakes the fogginess loose.

"Yeah. Sorry. Those are...weird?" Kara tells Alex, fumbling the word like it's not her own. "The green one hurt. The others, I don't think are there to hurt me. I could feel the effects and I got curious. How the fuck many types of Kryptonite are there, anyway? We're close to rainbow flag territory."

Alex chuckles.

"More than that, we think. You hurt? Did they do anything to you?"

"Yeah. I mean, I think the green one being there sort of boosted the effects of the others. I was scared, I think that was silver? Gold...I think that's what cocaine feels like to humans. Really spooky sort of burst of energy. Blue felt _good,_ relaxing like a hot bath and white noise and sleeping pills. Pink gave me sort of a little toe-to-hair buzz like a shiver. Didn't last."

"Red?"

"Made me kinda hungry and horny, if we're just being honest. I need to get like forty burgers on the way back so I can remember _which sort of eating_ Lena is for."

Alex's face is completely free of blood now and sort of dead-fish gray. She's sweating.

"Hey, you asked!"

Alex sighs.

"Yeah. I did. I think we should maybe explore that, all that, as soon as we can. Red sun lamps at first."

Kara blushes.

"Those, ah, don't work as well as they used to."

"Why not," Alex demands, crossing her arms.

"Well, uh, Lena had this thing. I'm mean, hot nerd, right? She uh...well..."

"Out with it, Kara."

"Sheaskedmetofuckheronallnineplanets!" Kara yelps.

Alex mouth drops open. Kara closes it.

"Like mom said, you'll catch flies."

"Leaving aside the 'blerg' factor for me, how? I mean, Saturn's a gas giant and Mercury is warm even by your standards."

"Impact shell of superdense carbon made when I hit the planet and for the gassies, I'd just make one on a moon and put it in stable orbit. I'd sort of curl it back to make a roof, too. Lots oxygen bottles, and a sort of two-person coffin that I'd load her into, kick off and climb in before she cleared the stratosphere. I'd generate an exactly one lightspeed field and we'd just sail away. When you're in a relationship, I totally recommend pulling a bra off at seven-plus G force. She'll practically come from the relief."

Kara chuckles.

"Alex, please say something. Please don't die."

"What does this have to do with red sun lamps?"

"Well, Lena takes a lot out of me but the oxygen bottles were only enough for like, one day. So we had to be sure I would be awake and powered to get her back. So I overcharged. Red sun lamps don't hit as hard as they used to. I keep the powers just get sort of dopey. Like a cat in the sun."

"How?"

"The scout ship. I set all three of the reactors for the subliminal engines -- basically just balls of fusion -- to mimic white dwarf and took a sunbath at the midpoint. "

Alex's mouth drops open again. Kara closes it.

"Again, flies."

"The one in Metropolis? That makes no sense, Kar. That's a wreck, especially after the fight there last month."

"No, th-"

Kara goes pale now too.

"FUCK! Forget I said that, yeah?"

Alex shakes her head.

"Sister honors sister," she reminds Kara. "keeps her secrets and her heart."

"I will, soon. The whole thing...I'm not sure what my plans are. You'll probably know before I do because I think we to brainstorm them."

Alex nods.

"Sounds good. Control room? Ten minutes? Minimum of sex talk?"

Kara sighs.

"Must I?"

"Yes," Alex laughs. "You must. The Martian's not even eleven by her standards. Kids in the room. Love to have you back in here later," Alex says, waving her hand around the vault. "I don't know what two-thirds of this shit is and neither does the Fort Rozz computer we snagged."

"Sounds good, Alex. I'll meet you back at the transmat."

Alex nods at Jameson who follows her out.

Kara looks back at the container. There's a stack of well, coal, by the door collected from some lunatic alien who pretended to be Santa.

_Ten minutes. Plenty of time._

She tucks the remaining Kryptonite rocks into her suit, wrapping the green one in the radiation-shielded pocket for her phone, and takes a piece of coal in her hands and squeezes.

"Come on, heat and pressure. Mama needs some diamond decoys."

Nine minutes and forty seconds later, she steps into the transmat room linking the vault in some godforsaken mine to the DEO's facility. Alex is waiting there for her.

"See anything you want for Secular Gift Giving Season?" she teases. "Not all of that is evidence. Some of it could be surplussed."

"Let you know, Alex," she jokes.

Kara runs her hand down her suit's right side. The pink one feels especially good. These are hers, now, as everything should be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Secular Gift Giving Season is what the Jewish and Raoist family of Danvers women do so they can have chocolates and embarrassing gifts and stupid socks without all the Jesus stuff. They just lean into the snow, the mints, so on and agree to complete Hannukah first, even if that pushes the date back.
> 
>  **Canonical Kryptonite types and effect:**  
>  Black - splits Kryptonians (in comics this is into "evil" and "good" and in the show it simply splits them like Kara/Red Daughter)  
> Blue - blocks powers on skin contact (used for sex in lieu of red sun lamps in a tiny number of fics)  
> Gold - negates and in intense concentrations, removes powers permanently.  
> Green - injures or kills  
> Pink - makes the subject gay (done once in comics, terribly handled)  
> Red - removes inhibitions and increase anger  
> Silver - induces fear
> 
>  **Non-canon type of Kryptonite:**  
>  "Opal" or "Rainbow" - an artificial blend created by an unidentified villian which contains many effects of the others and at controllable intensity, along with properties not known to exist in any form of 'straight', one color Kryptonite  
> (Two examples known, one in the Yucutan impact site recovered by LuthorCorp mineral and the other held by a private collector in Europe. Both radio dated to 196 million years ago)


	30. Behave! They're Sleeping Right Over There! (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where all our ships meet the family and do things in family beds, and hammocks, and treehouses and so on that was less PG-13 than intended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This marks the part of the fic where I'm going to try leaning into more lush language (modeling off Anne Rice) and just smut for like, five pages and so on. Wish me luck!
> 
>  **Cat's Color checks:**  
>  Green / Finance = go  
> Orange / Legal = slower or pause  
> Red / Human Resources = stop  
> (on the fly references to things like "Exxon Mobil" and "3M" refer to things like 'get lube' or 'get a condom' and so on)

**Cat Grant | National City | CatCo Tower**

The contact on her phone says 'everything' and it's blinking gold on the whole background.

Cat holds the phone to her ear. This chunky, too-big, brick of a thing but she has to own the best and phones are like reverse handbags. The fancy stuff is bigger.

"Carter, honey?"

"Hi, mom. Did you forget?"

"Fuck," she snarls.

"That's next weeks' vocab, I think," he replies, without a hint of surprise or a pause. "But I do need your help when I get home. Conjugation of all the different verb tenses of 'asshat' is really hard."

_He'll have trouble expressing his emotions, they said... Therapy only helps so much, they said... Interpersonal relationships will be difficult, they said... Social interaction will confuse him, they said..._

Cat has half a mind to hunt down the doc who first diagnosed Carter as being on the spectrum and have Kara gut her like a trout. Yes, he presents her more challenges than an ordinary boy might but _fuck he's hers and she's Cat Grant and his father as an asshole who also was a literal rocket scientist so that was going to happen_ and when he just glides through her embarrassment, deadpan, like it's a calm lake Cat's heart soars. 

She wasted three years of her son's life chasing the wrong therapies, approaches and cookie-cutter textbook treatment plans. Painting. Painting was huge and so was poetry. No poet laureate, no but in crazy rhyme structures based on the Fibonacci numbers or the Fettuccine numbers or whatever they're called. It lets her little man use his dad's math brain in a way that tickles Cat's writing brain immensely. 

In about ten years, she's either going to be dealing with a class clown, an art club nerd or a heartbreaker and she's not sure which sounds worse.

"Yes, well," Cat teases. "Make sure to study the proto Indo-European roots of 'cunt', all right?"

Her employes are looking at her like she grew two heads.

"Wait, honey..."

Cat squeezes the bridge of her nose like it'll push the headache back in.

"What did I forget?"

"Science fair. But your assistant lady? Kara? She came. She's really nice. Maybe you should date her!"

"That'd be wrong, sweetie."

"I don't know, mom. She's so smiley I'm not sure wrong things happen in the same room as Kara."

"Do your homework sweetie."

"I will, mom. Bye."

"Bye."

Cat hangs up and now she has the heads of Marketing and Promotion gawking at her.

"What?" she demands, rolling her phone hand idly as she strolls towards the elevator. "Only English word for female genitals that don't relate to their use by male genitals. Look it up when you get home. Go do whatever I pay you for!"

The elevator door dings behind her. She pushes the red 'stop' button and then 0-6-9-0 and the acceleration damn near flattens her to the car. Electricity crawls over the handrail. Just a hair. Just enough to raise goosebumps on her whole body starting at her hands.

"Mmm, baby. I love it when you're rough with my building," she teases.

There's no fucking way that security camera she's staring at wasn't just rerouted.

The elevator dings merrily and she steps out into a nearly dead bullpen. James is putting things into his camera bag and golden-skinned woman with a supermodel's bone structure and lingerie model's measurements and a ballet dancer's forearms is leaning against his office door. Her dress uniform is green -- Army, if Cat recalls -- but those heels look more courtroom than war room and there is a briefcase inside his office door.

If that's who Cat thinks it is, she has an errand to do. She puts on a smile and struts over, casting her eyes around. Katie from art has some of her backyard wildflowers in a vase on her desk. Cat snags it and closes in. James has one eyebrow raised but it's also like he's hanging back.

"Lucy Lane, I presume?" Cat asks.

"Yes, ma'am."

Cat scans the woman's jacket and tries to remember her last interview with a Pentagon spokesperson.

"First Lieutenant?"

Lucy nods.

"Yes. Not many civilians get that."

She holds out a thistle.

"Welcome to CatCo."

Lucy beams and takes it.

"Why, thank you."

Cat tosses the contents of the vase at her.

"What the fuck?"

James groans.

Lucy sputters, smacking her wet cap against the doorframe. She straightens up and her eyes sparkle with deadly mischief as she stomps towards Cat.

"Beach Barbie," Cat warns her. "Lois' orders, hand to god."

"Fuck," Lucy snarls. "I am _never_ giving Lois a safeword, ever again. Olsen!" she barks with enough force that Cat's ready to storm Normandy for this woman.

"We're getting drunk and we're plotting revenge."

"I really don't like getting between the Lane sisters, babe."

"Yeah, well, your fault for banging me in the supply closet then."

"Lucy!" James squawks, wobbling back in surprise like he was a six-four, two hundred twenty pound bowling pin.

"Ms. Grant," Lucy says, offering her drenched hand. "A pleasure."

"Likewise, First Lieutenant. Should my assistant reorder anything?"

Lucy shrugs.

"Red toner for the Canon _,_ I believe it was."

Lucy leaves with a baffled James Olsen following her, his red-stained hand clasped in her blue-stained one.

_Bitch lied. I have to reorder both types._

=====

The fact that her office smells like sex is actually a relief to Cat. The way Stacy and Harry had been splitting Siobahn like a wishbone, the absence of the musk, perfume and sweat would probably indicate a falling out at this point. Sure enough, the lanky Irishwoman is actually snoring into Stacy's lap, having pitched forward in mid-task when the vibe between her legs won out. A custom job by Kara, no doubt. It seems to have three robotic legs in a tripod-like arrangement and probably can follow the victim around like some kind of demonic crab.

The weed smell is not okay. Kara knows the rules: edibles and lubes only.

Then again it looks like _this_ Kara forgot rules exist because she has a nude, gyrating, beckoning Lioness on her desk with a blunt in her mouth and her M&M jar in one hand. Kara set the speakers to blast _Don't Give a Damn About My Reputation_ and if that's her reward for working late, Cat is right there with Joan Jett on this one. The lights were reprogrammed to it seems and Kara's skin is silvery, like a full moon under the cold glare and Cat can even see crimson lines of capillaries tracing under her skin and like everything else, they glow in the dark.

"Here, kitty, kitty, kitty."

Designer clothes don't come off fast. It's a major design flaw. By the time Cat has hobbled over to the desk while struggling with her left shoe, she feels like the best years of her life have long since passed her by.

She leans over Kara for a kiss. Dopey, high, silly, horny and finally _weaker_ than Cat. Her chance to steer.

When she reaches down to pinch the blunt, Kara surges into action and Cat doesn't register the motion and barely registers the sound of her clothes behind shredded and the next thing her brain actually processes is the cool glass of her desk as she's mashed slowly down into it. Kara has her arms pinned and her long, powerful body curled against Cat. Smoke is puffed down around her head and there's no escape. Cat is back in Radcliffe in 1978 with Olivia Marsden and she believes in things again and she has hope for the world and all the things that smell makes her remember. It's the whole reason why it couldn't be smoked in her prescence.

"Legs apart. Hands on the edge of the desk. Now," Kara says, delivering a two-fingered swat to Cat's lower back.

"Carter missed his mom."

"Yes," Cat gulps. "I'm sorry."

Two swats, one on each side.

"That doesn't matter. _Someone_ has been a bad kitty and _someone_ made your lioness ditch a date with _her lioness_ to cover her ass..."

Kara digs her fingers -- hard -- into Cat's glutes and she hisses her approval even if she's going to be sitting on purple fingermarks tomorrow.

"Punishment, Cat. Punishment and a lesson. Dominance. That's what I offer. You?"

"Submission," Cat murmurs.

This time _both_ globes get grabbed and it actually hurts a little. If she can feel the moisture gathering between her thighs, then Kara can probably fucking _hear it_ leaking out.

"Speak up."

"Submission! I offer submission. We become our best selves when we submit to loving authority," Cat parrots.

_Stupid Wonder Woman and her best-selling nine-volume memoirs slash sex journal slash BSDM bible slash self-help book._

"That's right," Kara growls.

A coil of rope is dumped on the desk in front of Cat. Sleek. Golden. Shimmering from within.

"Your hair?"

"Yes, kitty. Made it from my hair. Here's what will happen. I will tie your hands up and I will touch you and if you come without permission, I will leave you here until morning. Do you understand?"

Kara leans close and puts her lips to the side of Cat's head.

"Sorry about your dress. Do you think we can finance a replacement?"

"I..." Cat gulps. "Legal. We should contact legal to see about that story about Exxon Mobil."

Kara scoffs.

_Christ, Kara! Not everyone is twenty and can just slick up down there._

There's something hard in Kara's voice and looking at the reflections on the desk her skin doesn't seem to be glowing, it _is_ glowing and some sort of thick red slush is making her veins bulge under her skin. She worries Kara isn't going to obey the safeword and then _sweet holy fuck there's a lube dispenser in her lips and pressurized or something and it's filling her like a stuffed donut_ and Kara's laughing above her. It's slick and it feels foamy inside her and it's definitely dripping onto the carpet because Cat can see that through the desk. 

"Better, Kitty?" she teases.

"What on Ear-mmmmm..."

Cat gasps.

"Keep trying. You're a journalist," Kara teases.

"Where did you ge-mmmmm..."

"S'nice," Cat finally groans.

Kara laughs above her.

"Little bit of MDMA in it. Absorbs right in. Little catnip for my kitty."

_Ecstasy._

"Now," Kara says, twacking the ends of the harness' straps sharply against Cat's inner thigh. "You're going to have to be a good girl because..."

There's a disgusting squelching sound and something that feels thick as tar but smells like strawberries is being spread all over her butt and rubbed in her from knees to navel, paying special attention to her sex.

"...this model has never been used on a human before."

Kara, being Kara, designed their harness so that clicking the dildo into place has a metallic _clunk_ sound worthy of a sledgehammer on a railroad spike.

Something metallic, narrow and tingling just like the elevator guardrail is pressed to her entrance. Cat's head snaps up and Kara pushes it down slowly with her fingers gripped tight in her hair.

"Green!" Cat shouts before Kara can ask or before she can hesitate.

Kara slides home in one slow, smooth plunge. 

"Good kitty," she moans. "you told me so I didn't have to ask."

"Do you know that when lion's mate..."

Kara bends over Cat, smothering her and pressing her nipples into Cat's shoulderblades and _fuck_ and there's sloppy, nasty _wet_ noises behind her and she's pretty sure _Kara asked her a question_ but she is so turned on it hurts because her swollen clit grinds along the rim of the table with each tiny fidget and squirm.

"-u know?" Kara asks.

"Know what, Lioness? I forgot the question"

"That when mating," Kara tells her, voice dark and thick, "the male mounts and bites the females's neck, just so, to pin them down?"

Cat's hair is lifted and Kara's tongue traces the back of her neck and there's breath and a hard, merciless suction and she'll have _to wear turtlenecks now_ and then teeth. Teeth ghosting on either side of the narrow knobs of the spine on the of her neck.

"Green?" Kara asks with as much dignity as she can with a mouth full.

"Ride me hard, Kara."

She doesn't lift off to do it. Unreal and unfair and unstoppable Kara just lays on her and goes on tiptoes and she has more than enough leverage for fast, shallow strokes. Kara's panting wets her skin almost as fast as Cat's own sweat and her broad nipples are hard as copper coins against Cat's back, tracing quick circles on her skin as she pounds her.

"Can I come, Lioness?"

"No," Kara grunts, even as she changes her angle slightly and reachs around to glide her fingers around Cat's nipple and pinch and now holding back her orgasm is all but impossible. The warmth in her belly slithers out into her thighs, quelling the ache from staying on tiptoe so long and then up her spine, making her shiver and closer, closer, closer to her brain and Cat's not quite sure she wants to know what happens when all that connects.

"Please?"

"No. Teaching you a lesson. Be a better mom."

Each word is accompanied by a pinch on the nipple and a squeeze of the teeth.

Then Kara speeds up and straighens up to put her back into it and the jar of pens actually walks itself off the desk with the shaking and now there's _buzzing for some_ reason and her skin is sore from the pounding Kara's giving but then the lube inside her gels or something and suddenly her whole channel has been coated and now it's like someone _paired up every nerve in her clit and her pussy to its own vibrator_ and the harder Kara hits her the stronger the buzz.

"Please, please, please."

"No!" Kara barks. "You can't come yet."

Kara hips are a blur in the reflection in the window. 

Cat loses. The shaking rises and the fire slithers out along every nerve and vein and lightning lances up her spine and a maelstrom tangles in the nerves trapped between Kara's teeth and...

=====

It's still night. Kara is dozing on top of her. The blunt is burned out on her carpet -- discreet cleaning services _are_ a must -- and M&M's are strewn everywhere and the dildo is still in her but it must have shrunk or gotten beamed up or some space magic because now it feels like a stainless steel pencil, not the electrified club that had speared her last night.

"Kara?"

"Mmm."

"Kara."

"Mmm."

"Kara!"

"S'loud. Sex hangover. Pretty kitty needs to be quiet," Kara whines.

"That was amazing. Now get off me," Cat jokes. "Let me go, Kara."

"Never. Told Carter his moms loved each other almost as much as we loved him and we'd always be sure one of us would come to those events."

"YOU DID WHAT?"

Kara kisses the back of her head high up at the hairline.

"You never forbid me," she says, as if that's a fucking excuse. "You never minded when I joked. I like spending time with him. He's a smart kid. I just told him to play along and act like we weren't dating."

"Kara, sweetie, I..."

Was it a boundary broken? Yes. 

Was the boundary already stretched thin as a balloon? Yes. 

Was the intention to violate Cat's trust? No. 

It was to cheer up Carter and nudge Cat into saying what she meant. Not 'too complicated' or 'if only' or 'you have a whole life ahead of you' so not to bother. 

Does it make Cat feel like _everything_ and _worthy_ and _not forever broken_ that Kara wants to entwine with this part of her life, whether that means moving in or certain days or anything she wants because she'll help her be a better mom? Yes.

_Yes._

Cat's missed events before but Carter has never called to joke around and say how well it went and this time he did and he gushed about Kara on the phone. Kara just did this because she had access to Cat's calendar and it was a _little_ further than the times she'd ordered Kara to take him to lunch or to a movie or cover a soccer game and it was a little brassier than when she said _'I wish I had such a cool kid!'_ when Carter said she's a fun person and would be a good mom. She'd joked about being the 'absentee lesbian dad' and the 'side piece mom' if Cat wanted to stop this, she had probably a hundred times over five months to nudge the conversation elsewhere or say she didn't like the humor the implication.

Kara noticed Cat's hesitation at all those forks in the road and realized it that she couldn't offer it even though she wanted because Kara had to _take it_. If Cat were to protest now, claim that lonely her and hired help is a better choice for Carter than her _and_ this gleaming, kind energetic woman she loves like she loves breathing working as _team_? She wouldn't believe it herself.

"Fuuuuuck," Cat groans. "We're not going to be able to take this back, are we?"

"Do you want me to, Cat? In all seriousness? Do you want me to tell Carter I didn't speak clearly? Because I will. Or if you want me to be part of his life from now on, I will do that. I want to do that. Split the week maybe, half there, half at my place. But you need to say it. You need to consent and I know it's a big ask, love."

"Yes, Kara. You can be his mom. Not that I should ever let you near him again."

"Please!" Kara whines. "I like my little lion cub. Wanna keep him."

"Fine. But only because you pouted."

Cat sighs.

Kara laughs. Cackles, really. Like a nubile, sweaty witch was laughing in Cat's ear.

Stacy stirs and Siobhan startles and Stacy closes her legs tighter and Siobahn shrugs and leans back in. Stacy is her favorite playmate and that's basically Siobahn's life now. Sometimes one or both of them conducts business calls while inside or on each other's tongues. She reaches down for the vibe and flicks it on and its little silvery legs straighten and push the broad, crimson-painted head up against her and with each droplet of shine that spreads onto the device, it slides in further.

=====

Cat makes a mistake in the morning. She tries to take it back...tries to tell a walking lie detector that she didn't mean it _after_ Kara said the magic words of 'I swear, Cat' and Cat being an idiot didn't think this was a promise, promise. 

Apparently it was.

She is redressed almost as quickly as she was undressed and tossed out the window, chased by a cackling Kara who coils around her before she falls four floors and twists them so that she lands under her, shattering the concrete. 

So before the dawn chases away the last of the night, Cat finds herself rubbery and trembling at Kara's feet as the suited hero stands, cocky and loose, cape swishing behind her. She's staring down at her with her blue eyes glinting bright like a just-lit blowtorch. Almost like the surge before heat vision kicks in.

"Answer me!" Kara snaps. "I swore that oath to you as a Matriarch of House El, Cat Grant. Of my free will, I offered you that. On my honor. Question my honor at your peril."

A crowd has gathered, phones out and murmuring to each other and each and every one of those could be a lawsuit and there's thanksgiving lights out on the columns and Kara could be over for Thanksgiving and if her appetite is any indication, Carter and Cat could have non-canned sweet potatoes and _who the fuck turns down someone wanting to love their kid_ or parenting aid from any partner, sexual or otherwise and...

...and Cat bows her head.

"I'm sorry. You're right. I meant what I said earlier."

Kara's smile is breathtaking as the fall from the window. The strange red light fades from her veins. Kryptonian manic depression or mood swings or temporary insanity or whatever and Cat's almost sorry because maybe she can't get another fuck like that ever again. She really did feel like prey and it was only just barely safe enough and sweeter for it.

"I think we should go in using the elevator?" Kara muses.

She holds her hand out to help Cat up.

"Yeah. People might talk," Cat mutters.

Because of the impact crater, no one was in earshot of them but Cat's learned the hard way that the tabloids keep high-gain, long-range mics on her whenever she's in public.

Cat stands, puts her arm Kara's and it's public now and who the fuck cares because she can smoke weed and Kara and her and Carter watch Disney movies with a real-life singing princess belting out each song and late at night she can demand that Supergirl give her an at-the-desk striptease and rail her until the shockwaves in her body threaten to shake pieces lose and then make out with her like she can reassemble Cat's bitter, shattered life with little nips and presses and licks.

"Going to have to introduce you to my mom, you know. As a ward in her house and part of her family, I have to introduce all my serious lovers to her. It's common law."

"Oh," Cat chirps. "That sounds sweet."

_Why do I sound like some little twit who giggles because she's going steady?_

"Hmm," Kara says, her eyes looking over Cat when they're in the elevator.

"Shopping. Need to go shopping. Midvale's not really a Gucci town."

She molds her hands to Cat's hips and pulls them together, pressing her lips to Cat's and humming happily.

"Damn," Kara mutters, squeezing Cat's hips.

'These were _made_ for hip-hugger jeans. We can _both_ wear mom jeans now that I've adopted your little fuzzball."

The quarterly investor calls always felt like _work_ before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When she's already let some of her rage out prior to coming out on the plane and has non-violent outlets Red Kryptonite Kara is safer...to people. Less so to carpets/furniture and the sanity of passersby.
> 
> Kara isn't kidding. She wants to be Carter's mom. That, and I needed a RedK!Kara picture and I thought...this...this is how. This is where Cat would push back and be stupid and Kara would straighten her out.
> 
> Poor, poor Alex. She's the one with a work need to keep the Earths safe but unlike Eliza, she is not entitled by matriarchal custom to know who her sister is schtupping.


	31. Behave! They're Sleeping Right Over There! (Part 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where all our ships meet the family and do things in family beds, and hammocks, and treehouses and so on that was less PG-13 than intended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This marks the part of the fic where I'm going to try leaning into more lush language (modeling off Anne Rice) and just smut for like, five pages and so on. Wish me luck!

**Eliza Danvers | Midvale, Maryland | Fall 2015**

  
Eliza leans against the screen door. She can't help feeling her life has just settled in too many ways. Kara's graduation, her new job at CatCo, Alex's promotion at the City Department of Health -- to Director of Pandemic and Outbreak Planning, no less -- are all excellent things but she's a mom. 

Success takes her babies, not that she ever knew Kara as one, farther away from her. She demands a Monday, Wednesday and Friday call from Kara and she and Alex talk almost every night. That's how she knows how painfully lonely Alex is and how deeply that could-have-been one-night stand cut her. To the point that she's considering begging her superpowered sister to suss the woman's address down and approach, heart in hand.

It's how she knows Kara's best saves as Supergirl end with pizza and potstickers and evil plans in Cat's office where they find the knife's edge between positive coverage and outright propaganda. Kara says Cat takes one potsticker away for every aspect of a save, or interrupted mugging or a speech to the cameras that can be improved.

That, she'll believe when she sees someone take a potsticker away from Kara and live.

A west wind kicks up and she breathes it in. Ocean. The tang of clean salt lifted from spray by fast-moving air and under it just a bit of bite. She likes to think it's the sheer amount of _life_ in the sea, eating and fucking and shitting and somehow it still smells good being blown into her front porch by a soon-to-be squall.

The smart ones and the repeat vacationers are lashing their houseboats and yachts down in the marina. The one weekend types are about to have sheepish conversations with her uncle Barry about 'reasonable efforts' on rented property.

Most of them will be back anyway. Midvale was something truly special and she knew it the instant she laid eyes on it. Eight months pregnant with her little star and five hundred percent done hauling an already-stubborn Alex in her insides, she pulled up her bank account and looked at her husband and told him to just buy a fucking house already. Somewhere near either Metropolis or Liberty City. 

She met Midvale on a Friday and it felt surreal. It would be a small town like a thousand others except the four students of color run as many clubs -- five -- at the high school as three hundred white students and they do so because the administration knows that the only special sauce this town has is kindness. It would be a small town with all the closemindness and empties and reek of a dying breed except for a Catholic church packed with desiccated, grumpy old ladies who don't breathe a judgemental word about the group home next door packed with teens recovering from drug use and _not recovering_ from their sexuality and as far as she knows, the woman running it had to yank on the priests ear all of once before he mounted the pulpit to explain the difference.

Would that such things had existed for her brother Frank. To help him shun heroin and embrace another man for more than one night in something his body needed and his guilt made vile to him. Eliza asked once why he did that if one night stands made him vomit the moment he was alone.

> _'I'm made wrong, sis. I need it but I shouldn't. I want it but I shouldn't. Like a puppy should have been drowned before it humped too many legs.'_
> 
> _'Frankie, I tell you this as a sister and as a biologist. And you're going to listen to your sister. Anything that knows what it wants, what it needs to thrive, be it a person to a pigeon? Is made exactly right. The question is how you get comfortable with that.'_

He was low, back then. It's surprising that she had her baby brother another nine years. 

If it had been AIDS, she could probably have got him far enough to meet Alex. Maybe even for Alex to remember him.

She and Jeremiah were at the height of clout back then with the National Institutes of Health and the National Institutes of Science. Either of the Doctors Danvers wanted a patient in a study or wanted a sample on their desk? The next morning it happened whether it was from the FDA or the CIA, and in return, patents and processes were developed and they gave majority rights to the government. She could have dropped Frank into one of ten moonshot programs she was running with the CDC, buried under opaque language in the budget so that preachers and politicians didn't stop doctors from being doctors.

It was the heroin that killed Frank and ripped half her heart out, leaving her with only Jer.

The moment she fell in love with this town was the sight of the church ladies of a forgettable Atlantic town meekly smiling at a girl with ankle-to-neck tattoos she was too young to have all of them florid, watercolor-inspired work that represented women twice her age performing sex acts technically illegal in Maryland. A girl who was busy attempting to self-pierce around her right breast to complete a full circle's worth of studs.

The church ladies fond head-shaking at the bizarre sight made Midvale the place Eliza will never leave. 

It was where she raised Alex because here, in this town, she wasn't the only person who showed unconditional kindness to little girls and how in God's fucking name that miracle came about, she'll never know. The last person who did anything out of sorts to Alex was the sheriff and Kara nearly took down the football stadium with her citizen's arrest.

> She was new in town. This girl wasn't.
> 
> _'Not breaking any laws,'_ the girl snapped before Eliza was within ten paces. 
> 
> _'Yes you are.'_
> 
> _'Fuck off, you lumpy old cunt. Go have your perfect bougie baby and leave me alone.'_
> 
> Eliza couldn't help it. She liked the little shit. She'd said something similarly venomous to George Bush -- the first one -- the day before when there was some very disappointing talk about 'random' diseases versus ones caused by 'character flaws.' Very disappointing talk that nearly cost him the rights to a pair of blood clotting and thinning drugs that would later save three hundred lives in Texas alone from the hemorrhaging of some bat-transmitted virus she never learned the name of.
> 
> _'You're breaking the laws about tattoo parlors serving minors but that doesn't matter to me. You're breaking public indecency laws which probably bothers the old ladies there who remember theirs being like that. Not my problem.'_
> 
> _'Germ theory, that does bother me. Your lighter didn't clean the entire shaft of that and you're about to put that through the connective tissue anchoring the mammary glands to the pectorals and into a little known but important artery just above the breasts. You'll be spurting all over those beauties doing reverse wheelbarrow over your navel.'_
> 
> That was a bluff. If that existed, this girl would have committed suicide by punk doing the other side.
> 
> _'Well, if you think you can do a better job, you do it.'_
> 
> Maybe she expected something snide or rude or churchy but what she didn't expect was a pair of latex gloves and a bottle of alcohol being pulled out of Eliza's purse.
> 
> _'Deal. Scoot. Too pregnant to squat here doing this. And you're in my clinic next week to look at these other ones. Metropolis. I'll give you a bus ticket. Fashion is not worth dying for, young lady.'_
> 
> _'I help you get these in clean, and when you're eighteen I'll refer you to a salon. I do that and you meet a girl who likes looking at them every morning. You make something of your life, deal?'_
> 
> _'Deal.'_

It was no doubt the first time Leslie Willis called anybody _ma'am_ and it might've been the first time she smiled. Now she gloats and mugs and struts across stadiums as her trademark plugged in, uninsulated and ungrounded guitar cord dragging behind her. 

Livewire. CatCo's dirty little secret. One of three musicians they have on contract buried in their news media division. For pointing Leslie their way, the Queen of All Media gave Eliza carte blanche to attend their shows.

Alex never learned where all those original masters of punk rock's legendary albums in Eliza's closet came from or why each came with a note that said 'from Pincushion'. When Alex hit her grumpy teenage phase hard, it didn't matter. They're insured for six times what her house is and she probably should see if someone who listens to things other than Bach and Leonard Cohen wants them.

All of the CatCo artists are secretly metahumans or so Eliza suspects. 

Her rubber getup only gets Leslie so far and since she's still alive, her body has a different relationship to high voltage dancing on wet steel. 

Anyone as pale as Selene would be dead from oxygen deprivation and the crimson-clad, fawning women who cling to her legs as she sings vary in shade and affect show to show. Her being a vampire feels less implausible than her spectacular rendition of 'What Lola Wants'. 

Halo isn't even trying to hide it anymore. Once the Justice League happened, she started flaunting her powers at every show, slinging energy right along with her rhymes, tossing out beams and astral projection and spheres of perfect darkness across the stage as her hijab cycles every color of the rainbow as her powers illuminate the fabric.

The phone behind her rings, shaking Eliza's memories away like the last of her joint's haze.

She pads inside to answer it. The greyhound Kara insisted she adopt walks up beside her and Comet yawns wide, his narrow head seeming to split in half.

He nudges Eliza's hand with his nose.

"Hi, boy."

It's the landline which probably means a telemarketer. 

Comet grabs his favorite toy and tears into it. Good of him to keep her company.

"Doctor Eliza Danvers speaking."

"Hi, mom!"

Kara's voice, as always, makes her eyes open a bit further and her body feels a bit warmer.

"Hi, babygirl."

The sounds of the interstate behind at the other end make Eliza wince. Reflexively. Kara might be indestructible but the people who might hit her during the crash aren't. Hitting Kara at sixty miles an hour is like hitting concrete.

"You better not be driving and talking, missy."

"No, no, she's driving, I'm talking."

"Alex?"

"No. This..."

Kara sighs.

"I need to honor my third pledge to you, remember? The day we met?"

"A daughter never undermines her mother?"

Eliza rubs her temples.

"I don't remember the order for sure, sweetling."

 _"A daughter takes no lovers her mother does not know,"_ Kara replies in Kryptonian.

"I've met ... Stacy?"

"Yeah, and Harry. My life got more complicated since then. Not just the whole cape and skirt bit."

"You're still..."

_What, do I ask if she's still collecting sexual partners like some people collect rare coins? Has she switched to ditching them every two years like leased cars?_

"Yup, we're doing good. Stacy took over the deed so she can get her business insured. Fall is poor college student needs a laptop season and she gets good word of mouth."

"Who then?"

"I'm required to introduce them, not required to _not_ give you some suspense. We'll be at the exit in ten minutes."

Eliza looks around the back room. Her research is strewn everywhere and Comet's toys and pale grey hair is strewn everywhere else. Keeping up with Xenobiology and Xenomedicine makes med school look like a friendly game of charades. Nothing like an entirely new science and a midlife crisis PhD to prove this old mare can still win a race. What kind of shitty excuse for a mom can't do first aid on her own daughter?

"That's not much time, sweetie."

"I know, we rented a couple of rooms at the Spritz and Spray. We'll play that part by ear."

"OK, sweetie."

Someone in the background says something to Kara, in Spanish and she replies and it collides with an answer to someone else in Vietnamese and then the unmistakable...

_'Are we there yet?'_

...adults never make that whine in quite that way.

"Kara?" Eliza whispers, sliding down on her now-weak legs.

"Yeah, mom. Want him to meet my favorite person. See you soon."

Eliza bawls into the receiver and Kara tells her she loves her in English, Hebrew, Ajaktanni and Kryptohavli before she hangs up.

Comet plops himself on Eliza's lap when she fully melts onto the floor.

"Good boy. Good dog."

She sets the phone down.

"Good girl. Good Kara."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eliza's kid brother who was gay dying in the 1980s is borrowed from the "Little Girls Lost" verse by Argyle_S who I probably should be paying royalties to at this point...


	32. Behave! They're Sleeping Right Over There! (Part 4)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where all our ships meet the family and do things in family beds, and hammocks, and treehouses and so on that was less PG-13 than intended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This marks the part of the fic where I'm going to try leaning into more lush language (modeling off Anne Rice) and just smut for like, five pages and so on. Wish me luck!

**Lois Lane | Interstate 95, Maryland | Fall 2015**

( _"Italic text"_ is spoken dialoge translated from Urdu or Pashtu)

  
Lois eases her death grip on the porcealin.

"All right, Smallville," she pants. "Put me down."

He leans forward, panting into the gap in her half-buttoned blouse. His come is thick, sticky and _hot_ and the feel of it leaking makes her shiver. Her contribution to the goopy mess was hastened by five hours watching him absently chew a straw while whisking them down the road and the tiny, amazing body in her arms that _they made together_ and the fact that she couldn't exactly get any when she was shadowing crazy fucks in South Sudan, getting passed from warlord to warlord for interviews.

"I love you."

Lois snorts.

"Yeah, noticed. Love you too, you oaf. That's why I'm about to pull something if I don't get down and get this faucet off my back."

He chuckles. Broad hands grasp her hips and she hops down, confident that she can't possibly faceplant with him here.

"Ow," she grumbles. "That was not ergonomic."

"Sorry, sweetie."

She rolls her eyes.

"Don't be," she chortles, snapping her jeans. "Clark, you just demolished me in a 7-11 bathroom in Fuck-All Township, Maryland. I asked you to and I enjoyed it and I know this stuff makes you a bit embarrassed so thanks. But...I think the mirror's cracked and I know the janitor is going to pretend he didn't see that in the sink. This wasn't senior prom. So for fucks sake, use-big boy terms, huh? Sweetie is for when I'm holding Jon. I want a bedroom pet name too, for things like this."

He's red as his flannels now. Red as his cape.

"I'll, uh, do some research, babe."

"See?" she jokes, tapping his nose. "progress. I'll come up with one for you. Now let's get out of here before anyone notices."

He cracks the door, holds up two fingers, and goes ahead of her.

She waits to actually _use_ the ladies room then she follows, yawning and snagging an energy drink from the rack. The owner's wife is bouncing Jon on her hip, totally entranced.

"Strong grip," she jokes.

"Yeah. Thanks for being his squeeze toy for a while."

She nods, carefully unwinding Jon's fingers from her headscarf. Lois takes him.

"Hi, little man."

He grabs her and sticks tight.

"Newlyweds?" the woman teases.

Lois holds up her hand and wiggles her ring finger. The ring Kara made her is three gleaming blue diamonds, matched to the ocean-at-midnight shade of Clark's eyes to three decimals precision via his Daily Planet headshot and James Olsen' photoshop skills. Blue and silver and _technically_ the whole damn thing is a diamond not that most jewelers would recognize the particular variant of the band.

"Couple of years."

It's easier to just give people the timeline for when she deiced she was going to spend the rest of her life with Clark than tell people that she spaced off the whole judge-and-forms bit until last week.

Clark settles up for their gas and the terrifying amount of snacks. He hands the key back. The man glares at him.

As they walk away, she hears 'whore' tossed her way behind her and the wife's scoff.

_"I will tie you to a rock, put a camel spider in your mouth and let my donkey fuck you. If you scream, my sister will take all of your daughters."_

_"Then I will report your company violations of the Crane Act for safe storage of fuels and I will say I started investigating from this station. The fines will come down and they will look for scapegoats. Or, you apologize."_

She can hear him sputtering.

 _"You thought I didn't speak Pashtu?"_ she teases. _"How else would Lois Lane get her research done?"_

Clarks standing at the door, holding it open, bug-eyed. Two co-eds in University of Maryland T-Shirts take advantage of both open door and eye candy.

"He's sorry," the wife assures Lois. "Your son is beautiful."

 _"I know,"_ Lois replies. _"and yes, I realize camel spiders aren't a Pakistan thing but I was improvising."_

They switch to Arabic with him, playing the religion card and her Farsi, reminding him that he'd starve by dawn if she didn't cook. As they start truly arguing with each other, Lois takes her leave.

Clark puts a hand out and she steps on and he lifts her into climbs into his stupid, classic, fully rebuilt 1970s pickup. A hobby that would be offputting if it wasn't an heirloom and if _Kara_ hadn't had to help hi with the engine while she was sneaking a GPS into the air conditioner vent on the dash and a computer into the glove compartment, one that puts the Daily Planet's datacenter to shame.

"Lucy is in a relationship, you realize?"

"Hmm?"

Lois chuckles.

"Oh, no. I would've given his daughters to Kara but there's like three words for cousin and it's complicated so I winged it. I may be a bitch but I am a feminist. They deserve some good sex."

Clark's face drains of blood.

"Gonna write while you drive, baby. Sound good?"

"Go for it. We probably should actually finish that byline together."

"You can report the Walmarts for the cleaning supplies but the 7-11s are mine," she snaps, glancing in the rearview. "I'll just say it was the one three towns back."

When the hum of the interstate turns all else to a dull buzz, a sound catches her attention.

_Thud._

_Thud._

_Thud._

_Thud._

Kara has been helping her practice. Two heartbeats, muffled by liquid.

She's going to raise some dangerous women...

=====

Clark's phone buzzes and he nods at it.

"Such a rule follower!" she teases.

"Yeah, well, I'm not unbreakable enough to let you text and drive, sweetie."

"See? This is a sweetie situation."

Lois fingerprints, patterns, passcodes and finally retina-scans herself and the phone unlocks.

"Kara. Wants us to pop by Midvale for a while."

He smiles. 

=====

( _"Italic text"_ is dialoge translated from Kryptonian)

Lois has never seen Short Stack look this low. She's slumped on the couch, her Rapunzel-like locks trailing sadly behind her. The house is packed with Kara's girlfriends and their girlfriends and Stacy and Harry and of course, Kitty and her boy. There's a tattooed woman Lois recognizes from a crime story she wrote but who currently isn't speaking unless Lena Luthor -- Lena motherfucking Luthor -- tugs on a little golden chain hooked to her choker necklace.

Eliza Danvers being Eliza Danvers, ran off before they arrived for 'errands' and she is probably panic buying food so she can cook while she talks to Kara's sweethearts and not have to face a wall of feelings and strangers without a task to distract her.

"Seriously?" Kara groans. "I'd hoped our last chat might've inspired you. That email I sent you, those starting points? That wasn't the fucking SATs, Clark. Hollywood would _kill_ for the movie rights to the stories in those recordings. I wanted to teach you so I was trying to get something exciting to get your attention. How do you so casually disappoint me, Kal-El?"

He just blinks at her.

"ecret-say on the denity-iay, _please_."

He has the gall to nod towards Lena and Lois is impressed that Kara merely shakes her head.

"I trust them all with my life and Lois and Jon can take care of themselves. You, I worry about but I've set up Martha well enough that she can bail you out when they come with the torches and pitchforks. James Olsen has an office forty feet away from me in what is now the most fortified structure on the Earth's surface. Well, five-way tie anyhow. Consider it a little bit of revenge."

She sits up and brushes her sweater.

"Lois, hand me Jon, please."

She reaches into her pocket and clicks something and a blanket, two candles, a decanter full of oil and a bowl appear on the coffee table.

"Thank you for doing this, cuz."

Kara nods.

"Can't have you blundering through the prayer. Wouldn't be seemly for an El. Besides, you can do the next one. We're going to get lots of practice with this soon enough. Hoping I can get one in Stacy and one of hers in me. Not too far off until the first class of matrices pop either."

"WHAT?" Clark hollers.

Jon whines and Kara pulls him out of Lois's arms and holds him tight. He snuggles towards her and quiets immediately.

"Yeah, yeah," Lois grumbles. "They're pretty great tits."

Kara smirks.

"I am activating the genesis Chambers in a carefully concealed ship. Your blood, Zod's half of the material from the Doomsday monster and a few samples from Astra's people were enough to kickstart it. We baseline with intact adults and the redundant seed helixes from Ina-Zenn El, Zod, and the main codex filled it out from there. Brighter rainbow than the central temple back home, actually."

"Kara, you can't just...do that. It will scare people, that kind of change. These," he taps his shirt, indicating the suit beneath. "They're symbols. People can't be afraid of us."

Kara's golden eyebrow arches.

"You really just going to tell _me_ what that symbolizes, that symbol? It memorializes a woman who died a million Earth years ago and who founded a line of mothers that will _not_ end in my grave, it will end with the heat death of the universe, if then. With her friends in Zod and Vex she formed one of three pillars of the greatest civilization -- that's objectively speaking -- this galaxy has ever known."

"Do _not_ try and tell me that we only mean something as warnings. Cautionary tales. Walking tombstones. The very weakest thing you can be is 'Last Son', Kal-El. You could be a dad. You could get your shit together and take part in the house. You could take up stamp collecting. Any number of things. And I'd be proud of you. You shouldn't fly around like a deathseye rose or a polar military dirge and do not _dare_ tell me to."

Clark swallows.

"I suppose. Just don't...maybe not use the suit, or change it. Mixed messaging?" he suggests.

"Lois. Take baby. Clark. Go outside," Kara growls. She offers Jon.

"I've got Jon, Smallville."

Lois nods.

"Go apologize and come to some kind of an agreement with Short Stack."

Clark shuffles outside.

There's low, hushed whispering that gradually increases into a growl on Kara's part and finally a crack that rattles the windows.

"HOW DARE YOU!" she shrieks.

The front door bangs open. Kara shoves Clark inside.

"Lois, I'm sorry but as his chosen, you need to be here for this. Not sure how but you have the best husband and the _worst husband_ at thesame fucking time."

"Kneel, Kal-El."

"No."

Kara's eyes flash.

"Kneel, or this gets worse."

"I won't fight you, Kara."

She rips her shirt open, then his, baring both their suits.

_"I, Kara Zor-El, eldest, female who comes out of Alura and out of mothers uncounted from Vyala naka Ina-Zenn and Eyara naka El do disavow, attaint, and disown you from the House of El for attempted treason against the house, the republic, and her people. Surrender your coat of arms and use them no more. Surrender your name and until you are instructed otherwise you are Kal Novoka. Kal of the Rankless."_

Clark stares at her, tears gathering.

_"What?"_

_"Those babies in the matrices are alive, Clark. There's no rewind button. No wait for public opinion on this. 'Doing it later, after a while?"' would take enriched Kryptonite in the IV tubes and a million degrees heat until their halfway-developed brains fried from the stheer agony of it and their hearts stopped. Once fertilized, they carry to term, safely and without any risk of miscarraige. That's the entire point."_

_"If you'd read any of the data I'd sent you on Genesis Chambers, you'd know that. Know better than to think it, let alone breathe the idea in my presence. Those are wombs, Clark, not VCRs and killing what's inside them is murder! You're talking about taking four dozen little ones away from Astra's people and human volunteers I selected. Children who will be the first ray of light in the nightmare that began with Krypton's destruction. You were asking me how it would be done, details. You need not know the technical details of the chambers to be tried under our law. Ignorance is no more defense here than it is in Metropolis' courthouse. Thus conspiracy to commit murder. Rather than submit you for a trial I will attaint you and ban you from our new city and you will surrender the coat of arms."_

_"How will I explain it?"_ he asks. _"When...when they look up and don't see it?"_

_"You will not. When you are asked, say nothing but to ask me. Then I will and they will know I did it without a shred of pleasure. That interview will be the saddest duty you have thrust upon me since my arrival, Kal Novoka."_

She gets his fingernails into the edges of his suit's coat of arms and fires her heat vision even as tears drop from her eyes and immediately boil. Little by little, she cuts the world-famous 'S' off and sets it aside. Clark doesn't try to stop her. He just sags.

_"You will be provided a Vish glyph, those of our Military Guild's peacekeepers as an appropriate substitute until the day you might earn this one back."_

"Lois, may I have Jon, please?" she asks, switching to English and sniffling. "I must still induct him into the line."

Lois meets her by the couch. Kara pours the oil into the bowl and stares dumbly at the candles.

"Could you, uh, light these? Don't trust my heat vision right now."

"Sure, Short Stack."

Clark tosses her a zippo that was by the door. Kara's right. She has an excellent _human_ husband and _fuck it_ she is going to get him to be an excellent _Kryptonian_ husband and more importantly cousin...if takes her the rest of her life.

They smell like nutmeg and something between ozone and ginger, respectively.

"Done."

"Put him in my arms," Kara sighs. "I'm so mad I'll have to have my eyes closed. In English, then in Kryptonian, all right? Someone here needs to learn at least two of our rituals and he's only got one."

"Jon, you come to us from the those of Earthly birth and a Rankless father but through my powers as Matriarch, I raise you to my House. I grant you the name Jonathan-El and you have my blessing to speak it as Jon-El. I welcome your light and your breath and your strength to my house. You will be the dawn in our hearts the rest of our days and when our suns set, you will be the memory of us in the light to come. I give you your house words, _El Marayah_ , because we are strongest together."

She dips her fingers in the oil and holds them near the white candle.

"I give you our first virtue, _zdedh_ , or unity."

Kara traces the half-hardened oil across Jon's chest and he burbles. This finally makes Kara smile.

Thirteen virtues pass in near silence and thirteen glyphs drawn on her son's bare chest. Only Kara's tight, strained voice can be heard.

She switches to the red candle, which seems to dissolve the wax and she makes it through the Kryptonian in a dead sprint, hands Jon back and disappears upstairs, crying.

Lena Luthor wanders over with a click-click-click of thousand dollar heels, an Armani vest and jacket and the skirt under it must be from a yellow sundress. Webcam only showed her top half, Lois supposes.

_"My wife's heart is broken and you can count yourself lucky that I am the one Luthor alive who will go help her, rather than hurt you for it, Kal Novoka."_

As the last of the icy kryptohavli drips from her tongue, Lena unwinds her low ponytail and shakes her hair free then turns on six-inch heels like only a force of nature or a vengeful goddess possibly could. She heads upstairs, ripping her conference call headset off as she goes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is Clark's rock bottom. He's got a lot of good women around who can help him improve, unless Diana finds out about the mansplaining somehow...


	33. Behave! They're Sleeping Right Over There! (Part 5)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where all our ships meet the family and do things in family beds, and hammocks, and treehouses and so on that was less PG-13 than intended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This marks the part of the fic where I'm going to try leaning into more lush language (modeling off Anne Rice) and just smut for like, five pages and so on. Wish me luck!

**Eliza Danvers | Midvale, Maryland | Fall 2015**

Kara is on the roof. Someone Eliza can't fully see is sitting in the window in Kara's bedroom window up in the attic but Kara is parked outside, keeping a half-inch off the shingles so she doesn't damage them. Her senses must be acting up because she's wearing the sunglasses her friend at Star Labs made her. Her makeup is running with tears and her mascara is staining the black and white gingham shirt she wears and...yet still half-an-inch. Still respecting Eliza's house. Still acting out respect for mothers that was drilled into her until it came naturally. Until respect and awe for domesticity and motherhood seeped from her bones.

_Rooftop crying...that's never good._

Eliza tries to think what could have caused this. Alex didn't leave for college _again_ and her husband could hardly have gone missing _again_ and she too would have been told if a body was found. Her heart, which has been fluttering with jittery happiness, drains and chills.

Clark Kent is sitting in his pickup truck looking like a trapped squirrel and Lois, being Lois, is standing behind his bumper so he can't back up. Yet another woman is holding Jonathan Lane-Kent, a tall Latina in a dashing pantsuit. His little fingers tangle in her lapel and she hums something to him in Spanish. 

_That fucking does it._

"Clark Joseph Kent!" Eliza bellows.

He startles and tosses it into gear and Eliza dives for Lois and _nothing happens_ and she peels herself off the pavement, she sees why. Leaning casually against the truck is Lois and the tailgate is creaking and straining and the tires are squealing.

Lois shrugs. 

"Appears superpowers are sexually transmissible."

The engine shuts off and Clark emerges.

"I, well...panicked."

Eliza slaps him, osteoporosis be damned. She shouldn't have but she really needed to.

"Five _fucking_ years, mister. Five years between when you left her here and when I finally got you on the phone with her. Excuse, excuse, excuse. Pretending I couldn't tell it was you speaking Russian. Every year, six days before the anniversary of you dropping her off, she crashed. Couldn't sleep no matter how much she cried. Alex had to do round-the-clock watch just in case."

He shakes his head.

"I was scared, I realize. I should've accepted more of my responsibility. Tried to understand Kara's needs. I apologize."

"Apology _not_ accepted because my baby is hurting but personal growth _noted_ so make your hay-bailing ass useful and bring in the groceries. Lois?"

She salutes as crisply -- and disrespectfully -- as a military brat should.

"Ma'am?"

"Make sure he doesn't drop the eggs. And stay for dinner. That's an order."

"Aye-aye."

Eliza pushes up her sweater's sleeves and heads inside.

"Neither of you leave until I get an explanation."

The Latina by the front door offers Jon to Eliza for a passing kiss. 

"Her, her I like!"

Clark Kent, the universe's worst deadbeat cousin is the cause of her baby's agony and he is going nowhere until he fixes it.

=====

Eliza heads inside and Comet nudges her hand and the pain nearly knocks her out. Stacy hurries over, spanking flour off her hands. She smells wonderfully of cocoa butter and the peaches she was cutting. Comet sidles towards the half finished pie and a Vietnamese woman snatches the tray up and shakes her finger at him, chiding the dog in her native language.

_I'm here to meet Kara's new family and first I have to triage it._

"May ah?"

"I don't think yo-"

"Four bones broken," Stacy decides. "Ah think?"

"How can you..." Eliza begins before laughing at herself. "Superpowers are sexually transmissible."

"Not like Lois said," Stacy sighs. "Not for me. Kara gave me her blood, every month, once a day the week after my period. Filled me up when ah was low so more and more ah'd have her blood. Took most of a day so she'd cuddle me and ah'd stuff cake in her mouth. It was sweet. Don't think my first aid will help," she admits. "Bit past Charleston Central's health class, there.

"Bookshelf on the right. There's a _Grey's Anatomy_ , top row. Under my coffee cup. Not cutting edge but it'll do for this. Page 385 to 391."

Stacy grabs it and returns, blowing a frigid stream of air across Eliza's hand before she starts flipping pages. It stings at first and she can see the frost on her skin but it's temporary and as it equalizes, her blood-swollen fingers melt it off. Some sensation returns to her fingertips that the swelling had cut off. 

"This one, and that one, and..." 

Stacy glances between book and hand.

"Those two."

"Fuck. Those will have to be set."

"What happened?" Stacy asks.

"Punched Clark."

"Makes sense."

Eliza mulls on it. She can go to the hospital and get her hand fixed and get lectured on 'a woman her age' as if she had a bone density loss of 50% instead of the edge-of-curve 7% she maintains with Comet's required daily jogging, a drug from one of Dr. Chesapeake's trials, and calcium tablets until she worries she'll fizz. Or she can stay here and hug her little girl better and if they have to fucking amputate...that's being a mom.

Harry comes into the room, wiping his forehead with a towel. All smiles.

"Hurt your hand?"

"Punched the Insensitive Man of Steel out there."

"Oof. I can relate but still. Let me get Kara."

He hurries upstairs and Kara comes down, shattered-looking and but for the brunette on her arm, probably unable to manage the walk.

"Hi, mom. Harry said you needed help with your hand?"

Eliza blinks.

"What I should do is go punch Clark again but what I need to do is go to a clinic."

Kara raises the sunglasses.

"Those four spots, right? Can we align them?"

"Sure, but what good does that do?"

Kara winks and her open eye is seething with restrained heat vision.

"You can keep it that narrow?"

Kara nods.

"Yeah. Low energy so it only expresses when they cross. I can do LASIK narrow. Heck, I can go way narrower but that's only at full blast."

"Thermally fuse them? Sure. Why not? My baby," Eliza jokes. "...always learning new skills."

The Latina woman from the porch comes in after a while, still singing to a now-snoozing Jon. She slides off her belt and offers it to Eliza. 

"It's expensive," Eliza protests, turning the opulent leather in her hands.

"You're in pain and you're family."

"Eliza Danvers...I would but I don't have an intact hand to spare right now."

"Andrea Rojas."

Eliza puts the belt in her teeth and holds still for Kara.

"Ife fo eet du," Eliza replies.

She nods at Kara and with every flash of pain, she thinks of Clark.

=====

She must've passed out. Kara is on the other end of the couch. Not so much kneeling perched, really. As if she were a songbird, not a full-grown woman.

"Hi, mom."

"Hi. I'm sorry for whatever it was he did, Kara. Did they..."

Kara shakes her head.

"Lois is still laughing about the punch. They're sitting out on the porch."

"Can we go outside, babygirl?" Eliza pleads. "Tell me about your family before I properly introduce myself?"

"Of course, mother."

=====

Eliza feels like she needs to sit down again. Kara passes her joint back and stares out over the ocean. They're standing the back yard and Comet is at the bottom of the slop in the tide pools, busy driving some hermit crabs bananas.

"Lena Luthor. As in, _the_ Lena Luthor. Elon Musk meets Howard Hughes and then jumps Henry Ford with a knife, Lena Luthor."

"She might actually like that comparison," Kara replies.

"Andrea Rojas. Steve Jobs has a baby with whoever the fuck started IBM and it's adopted by the founder of Sony and whoever made the Super Nintendo."

"Two for two."

"Cat Grant. Rupert Murdoch, except not evil."

Kara looks horrified.

"We do not speak his name in her presence, mom. Dead serious."

Eliza smiles. She has to keep her bandaged hand well back but she bumps her daughter playfully with her shoulder and Kara, being smarter than Clark, shifts back to play along.

"Lena and Andrea are certainly quite the catches. But your boss is taking advantage of you, honey."

"My boss," Kara says with bunny quotes and a roll of the eyes.

"Refers to me as Lioness unless I give her permission not to. She handed me a time-bomb contract on my first day knowing I could walk out the door and use it against her if it offended me. Basically begged me to give her sexual companionship, at the least. That lasted about three days before it was clear I could ask for more than being something warm between her legs and she _needed me_ to. Lonely at the top and doubly so if the queen has to defend her kingdom by mocking the clothing, competency and manners everyone who challenges her to keep her vulture in the board off her. She got so used to pushing people away, she isolated herself. Now I take Carter to my place three nights a week and we do family stuff. When he's done with school, I take him to my little hero hidey-hole and he does homework. He's mine, mom. Well, half."

Eliza smiles.

"Times like that, sweetie, the kid's love grows twice as big. You both get a whole kid."

"The other one, with the tattoos?"

Kara swallows hard and fidgets.

"Lena is deeply into BDSM, mom. Not so much pain -- some folks are -- but power and roles. I am too, actually, though it's newer for me. With Cat, it seemed like taking all the details away from her was a relief. I'd set something up and she could just say go, pause, or stop. When I domme, it's much more along just tone of voice and sort of...presence? Hard to explain why but if I sort of prod her, all day, with our clothes on? When were alone, it's so much faster and more intense and cathartic. Lots of tears. Bubble baths and mental health check-ins after. Pretty sure we do more active asking if our partner is all right with it than vanilla couples dream of."

"Yes, I have been sexual with Ronnie, I mean Veronica but that was because Ronnie enjoys Lena telling her what to do. So Lena told her to pleasure me. Taking just a bit of choice away. She got to choose between sex with me and no pajamas for a month and it really was a choice. I think Lena cranked her AC down but she made her choice. I...I'm not sure what I feel for her yet. Like, yes. Love? Insufficient data, does not compute."

"How does BSDM figure into the whole thing? Is only Lena someone you love?"

Kara sighs.

"Lena and I use a chess analogy. Queens, Kings, Knights, Pawns. Kings are allies, like the people at work who run interference for us when we're playing. Queens? Me and Lena. Not dominatrixes, that's usually more a profession, but dommes. Knights, which are Cat and Andrea, who matter a lot to us. Like wives. They get to be pushy to anyone _except_ us and if they get uppity, we play games. Punish them. Pawns. Ronnie is Lena's and sometimes Stacy or Harry comes to keep Ronnie company. A couple people at CatCo pop in and out for me and Cat."

"All willing?"

"All _very_ willing," Kara jokes, waggling her eyebrows.

Eliza groans.

"Guess that's all I can ask until I read up on it."

"Word of advice? Don't just go and Google it, mom. I'll show you some reading lists."

Kara's stance softens.

"You're not disappointed," she murmurs. "Right?"

"No, no, honey. You're clearly happy. C'mere. Just hug around my left hand, please."

"Deal."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to have Clark and Lois stay so that Eliza didn't have to kidnap her pseudo-grandson and when I looked the photo, I made up a reason they're avoiding using both hands...
> 
> Don't worry, there will be smut. Eventually.


	34. Behave! They're Sleeping Right Over There! (Part 6)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where all our ships meet the family and do things in family beds, and hammocks, and treehouses and so on that was less PG-13 than intended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This marks the part of the fic where I'm going to try leaning into more lush language (modeling off Anne Rice) and just smut for like, five pages and so on. Wish me luck!

**General Sam Lane | US Air Force | Fall 2015**

Two airmen from his security detail walk up, salute, and wait.

"Report."

"Courier for you, sir."

He doesn't look up.

"And?"

One of the airmen stiffens and the other holds out a written order.

"General Samuel Lane, you are hereby ordered to report to Level 3, Conference Room C at StratCom HQ for debriefing. A presidential signature, sir."

He grabs the paper.

"Thank you, corporal. Captain. Dismissed."

He reaches into his desk drawer and pulls out a beat-up Nokia and dials it.

"Appears I'm burned. What the fuck? One girl means more tha-"

"Silence!" the woman at the other end snaps. "This wasn't me. Lena is as dead to me as she _should have been_ if you were competent three years ago. We don't know anything yet but destroy this phone before they take you."

=====

The bad signs pile up.

They don't use a cargo jet. Sam is led to the tarmac and escorted to an F-35T with its silver, angular fuselage sparkling after a rainstorm. Two pilots are standing by it, both women. Lanky dirty blonde and a black woman. They nod at each other and with a quick, hard squeeze of the shoulder, the black woman walks away, straight past Sam.

"That woman is the best pilot in the skies, _General._ Don't know how the fuck you screwed up so bad she's a goddamned taxi. Don't care. But I was top of class, she was second and I won Air Force Academy marksmanship tournament every...fucking....year. So if something happens to her, you'll never see me coming."

Military police officers are crawling over the front seat of the plane. One of them removes the sidearm from the ejection seat's survival package.

"General. Captain Hailey Jordan. Squadron calls me Hal. See you met my weapons officer, Jessica Cruz. Hop aboard sir, I'm your taxi today."

She holds out a helmet.

"She's a beaut, huh?" Hal jokes, nodding at the plane. "We're the first squadron to get them. Some complicated shit about females having a higher tolerance for continual pain. Some sexy new variants that Tycho and LuthorCorp cooked up. Eggheads always say two-seaters are a thing of the past but..."

Sam smiles.

"Been saying that since World War II, young lady. Some jobs are two-man jobs. So to speak."

"My feelings exactly, sir."

She tosses him what looks like a parachute harness.

"Bit quicker to get on than the old G-Suits. Toss it on sir and we're good to go."

Sam gets into it and looks at the woman. She's either playing it by-the-book or she's enjoying her part in this little charade.

She taps something on a computer strapped to her left arm and the rotors in the engine start spinning.

"Your ride got a name?" he shouts.

The engines roar to life but it's not the pale blue flame of a jet. It's mint-green and its strong enough the tarmac under it is bubbling. Some sort of clamps lock onto the landing skids so that the thing doesn't wander off.

"New engines!" she shouts. "Different colors, every damn one. Mine? Call her Green Lantern!"

He's pointed to the front seat. She helps Sam buckle in and his eyes drift to her sidearm.

_My last chance._

She must have caught him because she lowers her hand to cover it.

"Didn't believe it when they told me. Shame. My class looked up to you. You spearheaded Rattlesnake being the first all-female squadron and got us cleared to fly in Afghanistan."

She clicks her helmet shut. It looks like a cross between a stainless steel motorcycle helmet and something a stormtrooper wears in _Star Wars._

"Close it up, sir. This bird can fly and if we run out of the atmosphere, you'll want that."

Sam glances over a fully shut down control panel. She's in the back so she can blow his brains out if need be but he can't choke her from behind. He closes his eyes under the helmet.

"Aircraft is yours," he grits out.

"Thank you, sir. Not used to the bitch seat," she jokes. "That's Jessica's thing."

"NORAD Control, this is Rattlesnake 3, we are green across the board. Scramblers are on. All signals into and out of the aircraft cut in thirty."

"You are cleared for VTOL takeoff, Rattler 3. Safe flying."

Hal eases her bird up like a ballroom dancer and angles the nose towards Omaha.

"Tower, be advised, I am testing the tritium engines. Ignition pattern Beta-Eight."

"Rattler-3, this is not a proving flight. Say, again, you are not cleared for an engi-"

The rest of the response dies when the jammer kicks in.

"Hold onto your balls, General."

There's a hiss and some sort of fluid fills his harness and he is slammed back against the seat.

Hal laughs.

"You been holding out on me, greenie!"

He's wobbling down the ladder in Nebraska five minutes later.

Hal hands her helmet off to a mechanic.

"Ten thou, ma'am!" he shouts. "New record."

"Check the rear coils, chief! Felt like eight gees, not three!"

The last person he wants to see is waiting at the entrance to the StratCom bunker. Four military police and the base commander stand with her.

"Lucy."

"First Lieutenant Lane, US Army Judge Advocate General's Corps," she replies, plank stiff and hollow-eyed. "General Lane, you are relieved of command and pursuant to the orders of President Olivia J. Marsden, you are under arrest for treason."

She nods to the MPs.

"I did it for you, kid."

"Really? Really dad? No, just...fuck. FUCK OFF! Lois was right about you and you know what _hurts_ is I DEFENDED YOU TO HER!"

* * *

**NINE HOURS EARLIER**

* * *

**President Olivia Marsden | White House | Fall 2015**

No fewer than twenty Secret Service stampede into her bedroom.

"The fuck time is it?" she grumbles.

"Ma'am, get up and come with us. We're going to the bunker."

"REALLY?" calls a female voice so loud it must be over a megaphone. "I JUST WANT TO TALK FOR RAO'S SAKE! IT'S DISARMED! SEE?"

Olivia levels the nearest agent with a look.

"Supergirl?"

"Yes ma'am. Landed on the south lawn just now. With a nuclear warhead. Orders are to get yo-"

"Did she detonate it?"

"Obviously no bu-"

"Whose?"

"Beg pardon."

"Whose warhead?"

"Ours, ma'am. Air Force warheads. Six, actually."

"Take me to her."

"Can't do that."

"Put me on the phone with her, then. From the bunker."

=====

The security cameras on the roof zoom in on Supergirl, who is pacing the south lawn, absentmindedly tossing a crumpled up ball of metal roughly the size of a beach ball.

"Supergirl, hello. You know how to get a lady's attention."

She blushes and it's sort of adorable. Like a schoolgirl caught with cigarettes, not an insanely powerful being who appears to have _punched_ each warhead in order to remove something.

"Right. So before anyone loses their shit, well, more of it...after I ripped out the triggers. I took the explosive plating off these by hand," she explains, tossing the crumpled mess up and then flying up to tach her own 'fastball' pitch.

"No plastic explosive means no boom, no squeeze the plutonium means no hydrogen go boom. Care to tell me why all six of these were targeting a small town? The town where my _family_ lives?"

"I don't know but I promise you I will find out and head will roll."

"So, should I just leave these here? I mean, there's numbers so I figure it's like evidence..."

"Please hold, Supergirl."

She glances at her generals.

"We get the numbers, we can track which base they were on."

Olivia nods.

"And who decided to fake an order from me to fire. Where should I tell her to put them?"

"Those are mountain-busters. Andrews is way too close. Give her..." The Chief of Air Force writes something down. "That lat-long and tell her she can put it in the tarmac at the base's edge."

"So, apparently, Supergirl, I'm sending you to Area-51 to drop those off."

"Ha! I love it. Where is that anyway?"

She reads it off.

"Got it! Looking forward to voting for you again!"

"Always nice to hear. Maybe next time, in my office, with an appointment, hmm?"

Olivia hangs up.

"ANYONE WANT TO TELL ME HOW PROJECT CADMUS IS STILL IN BUSINESS?" she bellows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is no "two-seat" version of the F-35 Lightning II fighter jet used by the US Air Force and others but initially, there was no two-seater version of the F-15, F-16 or F-18 jets either. Later variants emerged.  
> \-----  
> Denver to Omaha, Nebraska is 541 miles. Assuming some time to land, the aircraft would have to exceed 10,000 miles an hour. There is currently an experimental project at the 'Skunkworks' to create a small, portable fusion reactor. This universe has Lex and Lena completing it together during her last year of college. Presumably other alien-inspired tech is in the aircraft as well.  
> \-----  
> The original Green Lantern in DC comics is "Hal Jordan" and the first female Green Lantern is named Jessica Cruz.


	35. Behave! They're Sleeping Right Over There! (Part 7)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where all our ships meet the family and do things in family beds, and hammocks, and treehouses and so on that was less PG-13 than intended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really get squicked out by the Born Sexy Yesterday trope but I am a whore for the Fish Out of Water trope and technically, you can play the former as a fake-out and end up with the latter. Once in a long damn while a movie or book gets it right. I think parts of Wonder Woman (2017) did it beautifully, where Diana was absolutely hopeless in London and the soldiers were gawking but the instant someone _pushed_ on her sense of right and wrong, she slipped from 'sexy strange woman' to someone who saw an unacceptable situation, said so, and end up shaming the head of the British Army. She went from BSY to FOoW and it showed exactly who she was and why she was being underestimated.
> 
> So Lyta is my trope-bearer for this.

**Lyta-Zod | Upper Midwest | Fall 2015**

**  
** _9,000 feet altitude_

Clarissa spreads the map across the back of Lyta's shirt as they hover, silent and still, far above the farms.

She's been carrying her betrothed on her back like she were a riding _galata_ back home. Clarissa was going to 'drive' whatever that is and then she started musing to herself about complications. The counteroffer -- once Clarissa came around -- was gladly accepted and it meant traveling light. Which feels _right_ to Lyta. In her life she has been a child, a ward of honor to pay for her family's debts and a prisoner of a mad witch. She cannot imagine what Clarissa needs four suitcases for.

One duffle around her back and one large backpack around Clarissa's with that ridiculous _talaq_ -shaped beast inside it. Which she will never grow to like no matter how often it melts into her lap, making a throbbing sound like a lover whispering in her ear.

For all the rightness and the intimacy of it presented a problem: human-build computer navigation technology, at least that available to civilians cannot compensate for Lyta's speed. Conversely, the armor she was provided by a mysterious benefactor who delivered it via 'U-P-S' contains only geographic scans of Earth with highlighted military installations.

Not these maps. These were purchased at a fuel depot called a 'gas station' though she saw no hydrogen three equipment and the smell was that of poorly refined fossil fuels.

"Helpful that you're so big," Clarissa mumbles. "Spread the whole map out. Let's see...that's...right...yeah. Shit. Nope."

She digs her heels into Lyta's hips.

"We're lost. I need some more height, sexy. I'm going to put a breather on."

"How much?"

"Enough that it's nice you had this jumpsuit for me. Here, kitty...just gonna bubble up your carrier here."

Smoky protests in a long, sharp-toned sound.

"First kitty in space though. Technically."

This would feel ridiculous were it not so charming.

"What's the goal?"

"We need to be able to see five lakes. The one _closest_ to the ocean has a canal and the canal leads to a river and we follow the river until it ends. New York."

"And we will know these lakes?"

Clarissa hums.

"They all touch, or have connecting water and smallest is the size of the bed of the Jeweled Sea."

"Ah."

Clarissa flattens on her back and wraps her arms tight around Lyta's neck.

"Hmm. You're easy to like. Up, up and away, shall we?"

=====

New York is a forty breaks' brisk walk, at least the edges are. The core? Reaching the core would take the day. Clarissa demanded they set down in a small town far back from the city. There was an attack, it seems. Involving civilian aircraft flying into buildings. Recalling it cuts her betrothed deeply, so it must have been terrible.

They found an abandoned store in a sad little village and there were able to procure a vehicle. It was immobile but the government registration was current, her suit's infiltration systems informed her. It was repaired with a blast of heat to the cracked pipe in the engine and the refilling of its fluids. The noise made her jump when she started it.

She was worried Clarissa injured herself laughing.

"It is..."

Lyta looks up. Another thousand years to merge and make the construction uniform and it is a city. For now it is a lovely outpost. A dream that humans _can_ one day build things like Argo, or her former home of Sanderii.

"Quaint, I'm sure," Clarissa jokes. 

"Promising, I was going to say. It shows you have the _desire_ to build something like an arcology one day and for that, it is to be marveled at."

Clarissa has a different map now.

"Can't your...flat thing help?"

"You know it's called a smartphone," Clarissa teases. "And only so much. I think my parents moved and it's not as if anyone's speaking to me in the community. We'll have to start at the edges. If I can find a Reform rabbi I used to know, he knows people inside. Bet he can nudge us.

"It is not smart. It is a rock with reflections on it."

"Sure, miss 'oh, I came from a Khardsasev Type III civilization' but I doubt your suit can ac-"

Lyta tilts her head. The controls come up in the clear inner display of the helmet. Human computers and their networks are split open as fast as her eyes can glance at targets.

"E-Mail? Twitter? Instagram?" Lyta asks. "The last two are vile, by the way."

"Yeah, um, those. Showoff. Rabbi Elijah Herschel. Runs Teachings for Tolerance for LGBTQ youth."

"118th and Avenue H, Suite 201. Would you like his phone number? Or his library waiting list? It appears there is an out of date law enforcement dossier, though I cannot see wh-"

"Shush!" Clarissa hisses, nodding to some bored male youths in the street. She too had noticed them but if they were to disturb Matriarchs having a romantic afternoon together, they deserve whatever correction she can give them. Nonlethally. 

"They can see the projections in the mask," she explains. "We can't do that."

"Ah. That would seem unusual."

"Just, um, tap it in here," she says, holding out her phone.

Clarissa kisses her cheek. She programmed the hard-light mask to dissolve if Clarissa's face approached hers. A pleasant realization.

"Voicemail. What you saw was probably an FBI file. They used to keep them on basically everybody but themselves. Probably still do."

"Not merely criminals?"

"Not even just _suspected_ criminals."

"You should deal more sternly with your _vish_ guild, my love. Keepers of the peace are deadly when they have no guidance. They prey on those in smaller or weaker groups to amuse themselves."

Clarissa sighs.

"If I was in charge, we would. Three days on Earth and you've figured out more about what's wrong than most white men ever will."

"Music?" Clarissa asks.

"Softly, please. The auditory dampeners are not perfect. Never meant for exactly this task and I wish to be able to manage it, without them, soon."

"Oh?"

"I like the sounds you make and it isn't as if I plan to make love on our wedding night in my armor."

Clarissa's cheeks darken.

"Ah."

=====

This vehicle consumes its fuel at an alarming rate. She had assumed it would at least reach the middle part of the city with a quarter-tank.

It did not even clear this one town, in fact.

"Stay close, yeah?" Clarissa mutters. "Not a great neighborhood."

Lyta's head snaps up.

"Are you in danger, _zhutov?"_

"Probably not. But maybe. Let's just gas up and I'll use the restroom and we can go."

Even if she was not worried for her betrothed, Lyta would watch. A warlady who is even for a moment unaware of the terrain, creatures and weather in her surroundings is no longer fit for the term.

This town disturbs her. Crime is clearly more common, at least against property. The general shoddiness of the buildings, even by Earth standards, suggest these are a people abandoned. Declared worthless by masters elsewhere and left to starve then punished for achieving survival by other means.

Clarissa staggers out of the back of the 'gas station' shivering and rubbing her arms. Lyta scarcely opens hers before she collides and closes in.

"For someone whose language doesn't have a word for it, you give really crazy good hugs," Clarissa teases.

 _"Zhor mov tul rrip."_ <in order - heart / near / hold / you (feminine) > | <meaning - "Heart, to you I clasp">

"Heart, to you I clasp," Clarissa murmurs. "I like it. Don't really need a word for hug, I suppose."

Lyta lets her senses open, taking the full brunt of the madness around her into her brain.

"Get in the car, please, love."

She lifts the left lancer from its holder along with a bubble shield generator.

"Take these. Put that in your pocket."

"I don't know how to use a ray gun!" Clarissa hisses.

"The emitter is set to provide an intense shock. Dispersed, medium temperature plasma for an instant. Like passing through intense flame but not long enough to burn the tissue. It would take several bolts to kill."

Lyta wraps Clar's hand around the weapon, making sure she finds the trigger and activating the visual aiming aids.

"Here. Handle in your hand, glowing blue end towards the person who needs to stop. Look over the top, through the triangular glyph. It flies perfectly straight. I will be right back."

[Warsuit?]

[My maker instructed me to tell you my destination is Onesie.]

[This was?]

[I was commissioned by Kara Zor-El, using a customized, Earth-centric design and delivered by the Military Guild from a fortified installation.]

[Very good, Onesie. That symbol, on the ceramic tiles. Cross-reference then scan for biological traces.]

Unaided by the suit, her vision tells her that the trail from paint to door is warm. Recent. Shed oils on the skin are still cooling.

[Symbol is known as a 'swastika' and originates peaceably in various religions. Modern usage is b-]

[By genocidal war criminals. Thank you, Onesie.]

Looking over the town, past a woman feeding a domestic animal like Smoky, only round and four times the size, and a young girl who is bruised and crying while holding a beast that looks like a black-furred warhound, she sees him. Half-grown male with a can of aerosolized paint.

For this, there will be no subtlety. Bypassing the old woman, she leaps through the bedroom window of the weeping girl, earning a snarl from the beast -- the animal loyal, good -- and she shatters the door with an open-palmed strike.

"The fuck is your pro-oh god! Oh god, you're one of those aliens from Metropolis."

"Your daughter. She is injured and crying, male. I suspect that you are not comforting her because you are the _cause_ of her pain. Explain."

"She-sh-SHE NEEDS TO LEARN!"

"Girl," Lyta asks over her shoulder. "Would you and the animal be safer here, or with someone else?"

"S-s-someone else."

"Find a bag, pack it. I will inform someone who can find you both a better home."

The male, perhaps intoxicated, lunges towards her.

"Who the fuck do you think you are?"

She sidesteps his strike with her speed and lets it collide with the mirror.

"I _know_ that I am Lyta-Zod, warlady and Matriarch of Krypton. Someone whose hair is a hundred thousand times stronger than your _spine,_ male. So perhaps you should be silent."

"Scary metal lady?" the girl asks.

How she wishes the grim situation allowed her to laugh.

"Yes, little one?"

"M'ready. Don't have a leash, though."

Lyta pulls a lamp from the floor, traces the cord at both ends with her heat vision to sever it and hands it to the girl.

"Let it cool, then tie it around the beast's collar, at the loop."

"I know how to tie a leash! M'Sarah. He's named Bear."

_Sarah? As Clarissa was named when she was born? Rao's laughter following me across the stars._

"Future matriarch, indeed. I too know a Sarah. Wait here, please."

She nods eagerly.

"Male? I will find that girl, exactly where and how I left her. If I do not see her there, in her current state you will draw not one more breath. Am I clear?"

He nods.

"Good."

The vandal is busy spray painting another house. She slips away from the girl and dashes into his field of vision. Hopefully the blueshift around her from exiting lightspeed will make him take her seriously.

"Cease!" Lyta commands.

"Got a right to free spe-FUCK!" he shouts.

"What...you...you were all the way over there!" he complains.

She presses her thumb into his palm and watches his bones carefully so that she doesn't render them into powder.

"And now I am here. So you should focus on the present. Your hand is not damaged. Yet. This is discomfort, not pain. Pain, you will recognize when I cause it. Do you know that symbol? How much it can hurt people?"

He nods.

"Then why do you paint it?"

"It's not like I believe it. Jack thought it would be funny to...to...well, to get a rise out of people."

"Provoke them, you mean?"

"Yes."

_Idiot, but teachable._

She takes the can and crushes it until it is no more than a tiny sphere.

"Now that you have provoked a reaction, do you think it was worthwhile? Was the amusement sufficient for the consequences?"

"Well, no. Clearly."

She jerks her head, indicating he should go down the street.

"Go. And ponder on this. Avoid Jack. And also," she sighs. "Thank you. For a woman of my standing, it is a solemn duty to impart wisdom on younger ones, especially males. You gave me a chance to do that today."

"Sure. Right. Have a nice afternoon."

She nods.

"Scary metal lady?" the girl asks, tugging on the black cape of her suit.

"Yes, little Sarah?"

"I'm hungry. Can we go?"

"Of course."

Her ward and the shaggy beast fall into an easy pace behind her.

=====

Clarissa raises an eyebrow when she sees them. The lancer is in her lap but she's alert and wary. Halfway will have to do.

"Hello, Lyta. Do I want to know what happened? Or should I guess? You...hmm. Rescued an abused little girl and I'm thinking the red paint on your glove means you caught the graffiti guy."

Lyta leans down towards the girl.

"I love her because she's smart," she whispers.

Clarissa laughs, quick and rudely. Like a snort.

"Back at you, babe. Well, kid, get in the back before the sun goes down. I am _done_ with the weirdness in Clemson Creek, New Jersey."


	36. Behave! They're Sleeping Right Over There! (Part 8)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where all our ships meet the family and do things in family beds, and hammocks, and treehouses and so on that was less PG-13 than intended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really get squicked out by the Born Sexy Yesterday trope but I am a whore for the Fish Out of Water trope and technically, you can play the former as a fake-out and end up with the latter. Once in a long damn while a movie or book gets it right. I think parts of Wonder Woman (2017) did it beautifully, where Diana was absolutely hopeless in London and the soldiers were gawking but the instant someone pushed on her sense of right and wrong, she slipped from 'sexy strange woman' to someone who saw an unacceptable situation, said so, and end up shaming the head of the British Army. She went from BSY to FOoW and it showed exactly who she was and why she was being underestimated.
> 
> So Lyta is my trope-bearer for this.

**Clarissa Rosen | SoHo | Fall 2015**   
  
  


Walking around with her hand in Lyta's was like walking a pet Tyrannosaur, it turned out. Her height, her physique and even with the image inducers on and mimicking a windbreaker and jeans, her armor had an outline and people would bump into it. Six men gave Lyta the old gawk and blush and in one case, charmingly, her shoulders seemed to be the draw. Queer women? Those she stopped counting.

Wardrobe change was a must. Men's big and tall business clothes was way out of price range.

Sporting goods seemed like a good Plan B.

Lyta hemmed and hawed about not being in her armor until they found a place to stay the night before stuffing yet another shield projector in Clarissa's _other_ back pocket which, honestly, was lots of fun. Seems there's no way for Lyta to get her hands within a foot of Clarissa's ass and _not_ cop a feel and whisper something disturbing and orgasmic sounding in her ear using kryptohavli that was not in Supergirl's PDF phrasebook.. She also made her take a 'fusion blade' which is totally a lightsaber and these sunglasses. Google would jizz in their pants if their augmented reality team knew this was possible, even a hundred thousand years of tech later.

The salesgirl by tents is bored and slacking off. She is fiddling with an earring and chewing some hideous, green-colored bubble gum.

The salesman by climbing supplies is entirely too hungry with the eyes.

The salesgirl by winter apparel has an undercut and swoop hairdo and the swoop cleverly conceals a whole crescent of ear piercings.

Behind her, Lyta is curiously running her finger along climbing pitons and even stopping to let her suit scan one.

"Curious."

"What's that?"

"Why do these use far better metallurgy than the vehicle?"

"Cost and purpose. The vehicle is a classic, by the way, 1978 Mustang and each bit of metal can be 'good enough' for whatever part it makes up. But that has to let someone hang off a mountain without dying so it has a need for strength over weight."

"Fascinating."

Clarissa taps something on the wrist computer secreted under her sweater, trying to up the scanning power in the shades without being a total perv.

"Hah."

The girl by winter apparel is wearing a _Xena+Gabrielle, Willow+Tara, Bette+Tina, Shane+Carmen, Carmilla+Laura and Waverly+Nicole_ novelty shirt. The glasses apparently could also forge her nipple studs after the scan but only because they prioritize metal over the visual feed. She's chalking that up to newbie mistake.

"Come on, honey. Found just the person."

She reaches her hand behind her and Lyta grabs it and if that careful grip and thumb stroking her palm isn't the keeping of God's promise to the Jews, she doesn't know what is.

"Hi!" Clarissa chirps, beaming and offering her hand.

Joan takes it and shakes. Clarissa does not let go.

"'lo. You are _not_ from here."

"Brooklyn," Clarissa grumbles. "Had to run away for a while."

"I meant tall, jacked and hourglassy over there. I'm Joan."

"Clarissa, Lyta."

Joan's eyes start the boots and they _crawl_ upward.

"I'll just bet she is..."

"She is and do not covet thy neighbor's wife, young lady. Well, fiancee. Trying to hunt down my parents first, then judge."

She turns her thumb and digs harder into the knuckle.

"Ow! Point taken. Glad you got pussy-petting nails and not those straight girl knife nails or I'd be bleeding. What can I do you for?"

"Clothes."

Joan looks back at Lyta in a more detached way.

"Yeah. Never let a straight girl wrap that gift. Is that like, plate armor? The shirt sort of sticks out at funny angles. Cosplay?"

_Damn, that is an excellent excuse._

"So you can imagine what walking from the garage to the GAP was like."

"I can't actually. Not without batteries. Let me go murder Jack in the stockroom and I'll take you to our flannels. Go for some paper towel guy cosplay."

=====

It turns out it was easy with a supportive if not horny helper fitting the clothes. Lyta is patient as a statue and when Joan perhaps bends the rules of fitting room properties, she looks over to Clarissa each time. Been tempting to another woman makes her want to look at Clarissa instead.

Soon they have a stack of flannels, _sinfully flattering_ jeans and even running and Yoga pants and a few large, squashy sweaters.

"How much?"

Joan hands over the quote.

"See, this is why I moved! That and NASA is in Houston."

"Figures that a rocket scientist gets the cute alien."

"She's not an alien."

"Bull."

Joan shows her right hand. Her short, bright blue nails are cracked.

"Unless you know how brushing her delts did that? They got snagged in a god-damned _canyon_ of muscle."

Clarissa folds her arm.

"Wouldn't you like to know...do you have an employee discount?"

"Sure, 25% on orders this big. Why?"

Clarissa speaks with Lyta for a moment in Hebrew.

"Here's the deal. I let you snap some selfies with her and you can hint that she's your ex on Tinder or something. You buy the clothes, I reimburse. You make $20 on the deal."

"Shit. Really?"

Clarissa looks to Lyta, who nods.

"Really."

They pay and Clarissa hands over more than half of their rapidly dwindling cash. 

After a quick trip to a brightly light diner near an overpass and some downright obsessive work with a Leica she had snuck into her bag, Joan is satisfied.

Clarissa looks at the preview. 

She took Lyta into the back to help her with her nails -- more than a bit of grit and some blood under them -- and besides the fact that heat vision manicures make her sweat and not because of the heat, it was glorious. Clarissa helped scrub under them and they've spent a lot of time near her Lyta's lips ever since.

"Send me all but the iPhone earbuds one. And good luck."

Joan nods.

"You ever back in Brooklyn, take her to the Lasso."

"What's that?"

A smirk.

"Let's just say it was called Thump until Wonder Woman popped out of the sexy parts of history. Queer bookstore up front, party in the back. Bring like, a sword or something though or you won't get a dance in."

"Nice to meet you."

Joan smiles.

"Nice to meet you. I just need to come up with some back story it is _fuck you!_ dry spell. Shoo, before I get any other Biblically evil ideas."

=====

Lyta stands behind Clarissa. She does this with their backs pressed together without fail in hallways and places where someone could be there who Clarissa cannot see.

"Hersch isn't going to hurt me, Ly."

"He sounds lovely. Men of Earth make my skin crawl."

Clarissa bonks her head on the doorframe.

"I'm going to have to like, explain the patriarchy to you, aren't I? Like explaining air to a fish. Well, that's gonna take lots of booze."

After the fourth knock, he emerges.

"You don't need a bathrobe over slacks and a shirt, old man," Clarissa teases.

"What? I like the warmth and my radiator is _schlonged_ again so...how can I help you? How is my little rocket girl?"

"Still sinning, still planting them gardens one crop at a time."

She reaches back to hold Ly's hand.

"Engaged."

"To whom, Goliath?" he jokes.

He lets them in.

"Goliath's big sister, apparently. Come in, come in. Mind the cats. They didn't get any of my pancakes this morning."

Hersch's coffee is as good as she remembered. His cats seem just as fond of Lyta's solar-heated skin as Smoky, who hisses angrily from the backpack.

Clarissa is recounting Lyta's escapade in New Jersey when she realizes something. She needs to check on the kid. 

Any idiot capable of basic reasoning knows if you have a down on your luck kid, you call someone who adopts kids like other people replace socks. So, Lyta went over to Gotham, heat-visioned a bat-shaped hole in the clouds and waited. The big, grim man himself showed up but before he could ask any questions, a tall, muscular woman in skintight armor and a blood-red cape landed beside him.

_'I'll deal with it.'_

Lyta said she was puzzled why her suit needed almost a minute to determine their names.

_'Thank you, Kate Kane, out of Gabi Goldstein and daughters uncounted from the Matriarch Sarah. Let us know if she has any unmet needs.'_

She reeked when she came back because she figured out she could approach the city at hypersonic speed if she did so using the Hudson River.

She pulls out her phone.

"This is Clarissa. Hi. How's Sarah doing."

The woman on the other end laughs.

"Too much for a homicide detective, lady. Had to hide my handcuffs nine times. I think the dog lets her stand on his back..."

Clarisa scoffs.

"Probably. So you and... _her..._ what do you think?"

A sigh.

"Ordinarily, I wouldn't even have a kid over. But Kate and I want to try adoption. We talked about it again last night and we want to adopt a kid from a mixed-religion household. Girl, seems best or brother if she's got siblings. Do it right, not like Chuckles. Just a kid, not a soldier. Teach her my faith and Kate's, _bat mitzvah_ and first communion and just let her choose. That could be Sarah bu-"

A high, eager voice.

"Yes, I'm talking to Clarissa. No! Wait! That's...that's a drink for Kate-sized girls!"

Dectecive Montoya sighs.

"Also, clearly, kid-proofing the loft. She's great but she asks about you every time the cartoons go to the commercial. Sorry, but she was adopted the moment she met your girl."

Clarissa sighs.

"I get it. I mean, I'm going to have to learn about her, learn to love her _after_ the wedding and the only thing I'm sure about is I can and I'm going to enjoy it."

"You take the kid back and my lady can rent you any venue you like. Deal?"

"Deal."

"Great. She'll love it. I'll tell her in the morning so doesn't rev up and we all can sleep. We'll pop up to Metropolis tomorrow for League business and. New York is a quick flap of the wings for my lady."

=====

By the third sentence of explaining their plan, Herschel has put three shots of whisky into the coffee pot.

"So she really..."

Clarissa laughs.

"No, no, not in _that way_ because it was a matter of hurrying and not laying out my weird rules."

"Balancing your body, your dignity, your truth and your faith isn't weird rocket girl."

She scoffs.

"Tell that to two-thirds of the gay women of America."

"I"ll take out an ad in the Times," he smiles over his coffee. "Or LL Bean."

"Hah! You're improving with the jokes, old man. But she read the passage as if deflowered without marrying and yeah, I guess I didn't say yea or nay to _that_ but she wants to do the honorable thing. Not exactly averse to her, and not just the sex. Fee very safe and it actually happened because she wanted to learn more about the Torah and we were sitting close and I just asked if I could kiss her. From there? Good kisser, lots of muscles, her focus on what I wanted and poor impulse control."

"This will hurt you, rocket girl. Not her, clearly. But your parents. I don't want that."

Clarissa looks over to Lyta.

"She...she's big on honor and I can respect that. Making promises and following them literally unless it harms someone. She wants to walk in there, announce it and if my dad tells us to fuck off, we'll go cry in the hotel bathtub I guess."

Herschel writes down an address.

"Here. Your dad's not well, kid. Not sure if you can get cancer from being too judgmental and throwing your daughter out but he did. They say it's three to four months."

If she had to pick a parent, she'd want to rebuild with her mom.

"Mom?"

"Same hurricane as always."

He looks a Lyta.

"Not that she's not an ox but your father still owns that shotgun, far as I know."

"I didn't get a probe 86 million miles from the Earth into a two thousand mile wide slot without being a girl with a plan."

"Lyta, honey?"

She grunts.

"These furred _talaqs_ are persistent beasts," she complains, unwinding a tabby from inside her sweater. "I do not know how to distract them."

"Pretty sure you like cats much as they like you, honey."

"I like cats, but your cat worries me."

"See? We're practicing doing the same argument over and over. Do they like to chase laser pointers, Hersch?"

He nods.

"Lyta, laser is a small dot of highly focu-"

Herschel spit takes his coffee.

"She's just looking around and they're chasing the dots at the end of the beams. Just like Superman except she didn't burn the place down. Blue, though."

Clarissa's turn to smirk over her cup.

"She's had more practical. Something about genetics determines the beam color. We'll be fine."

**Lyta-Zod | Museum of Middle Eastern History | Fall 2015**

( _Money Talks: Coins, Currency and What They Teach About Cultures_ exhibit)

The suit's camouflage projectors worked marvelously. If only she could find which case this thing is in. She presses another button.

"This is a mold for a Roman _denarius,_ a typical coin in many parts of the empire. In some cases, such as ancient Judea, other, local currencies exists for various reasons. The story of Christ and the money lenders ref-"

Lyta pushes the button again.

_That's a Roman symbol._

She lowers the suit's mask and looks around.

"Found it."

She presses the button.

"This mold is for a _shekel_ and dates to approximately 3 years BCE and is from the first uprising against Roman rule."

The mold is small and can hold three blanks. Each has a cup on it and Hebrew writing. The case is solid and wired to send an alarm. She draws the armored finger of her glove across the surface and with a ghastly shriek, it is cut.

[Onesie? Analyze the metal.]

[Metal is sufficiently intact for up to 123 molds, assuming the use of silver. Gold melts at a lower temperature. Approximately 614 uses for that.]

[Set proximity alarms and use the infiltration system to negate all transmissions.]

She lays the mold out on the thermal fabric and picks up one of the ingots she requisitioned from Kara's depot. They should meet, soon, she told Lyta but she seemed no more eager for the conversation.

=====

"Freeze!" someone shouts behind her. "Hands on your head."

Lyta does not look up.

"I am nearly finished, young female. Please wait your turn."

"Lady, you can't ju-HOLY SHIT ARE YOU USING THAT???"

Lyta heat-visions another slice of silver and puts it into her palm. Taking the gloves off was the trick to carefully pouring the metal.

"I do not believe I am making...are they called waffles? So yes."

"Lady, I have to..."

"Please fire your weapon at me so we can be done with that part."

She does and the bullet flattens on Lyta's temple.

"You feel you have tried now, yes? Tried to do your duty?"

"I guess. Superhero sitting in the exhibit, making ancient coins. This is why I _stopped_ doing drugs," the guard complains.

Lyta opens the mold and blows, carefully, on the coins. They cool nearly instantly.

"There. Intact. I also lubricated the hinge."

She hefts the bag of coins which jingles merrily. When she passes the open-mouthed guard who is still dazedly pointing a projectile weapon at where she had been, she stops and counts out some coins.

"I do not know which my relatives would prefer but I am told that thirty pieces of silver is a reference to betrayal," she tells the woman, pointing to six neat stacks. "Call you masters and tell them you did not catch me and we can ignore each other the rest of our lives."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ante Trauje played Faora in Man of Steel and I decided she was a good reference for Lyta. Unless there's a perfect Supergirl shot it's going to be Man of Steel or plausible off-set photos of the actors.  
> \-----  
> Any cat that lives with a Krytponian has the best chaseable laser point er ever. It also opens cans.  
> \-----  
> Lyta is a very literal gay and she needed a _shekel_ mold made by Jewish hands but she is capable of humor, such as the 'thirty pieces of silver' reference to Judas's betrayal of Christ.  
> \-----  
> Silver goes for $26 an ounce right now. Assuming two-ounce coins (for fun) and the unusual, atomically pure silver would be very interesting to banks wishing to replicate the process. Let's say this increases the value 20% and the guard got 60 ounces of silver worth $1,872.


	37. Behave! They're Sleeping Right Over There! (Part 9)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where all our ships meet the family and do things in family beds, and hammocks, and treehouses and so on that was less PG-13 than intended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really get squicked out by the Born Sexy Yesterday trope but I am a whore for the Fish Out of Water trope and technically, you can play the former as a fake-out and end up with the latter. Once in a long damn while a movie or book gets it right. I think parts of Wonder Woman (2017) did it beautifully, where Diana was absolutely hopeless in London and the soldiers were gawking but the instant someone pushed on her sense of right and wrong, she slipped from 'sexy strange woman' to someone who saw an unacceptable situation, said so, and end up shaming the head of the British Army. She went from BSY to FOoW and it showed exactly who she was and why she was being underestimated.
> 
> So Lyta is my trope-bearer for this.
> 
> \----

**Lyta-Zod | Brooklyn | Fall 2015**

Pellets clatter to the floor. Clarissa's father, red faced and frothing like a sick animal, stares down the sights at her. Mimicking one of Kara's more disdainful saves, Lyta reaches up to brush her hair from her eyes.

"I enjoyed this sweater," Lyta snarls. "Your daughter has excellent taste. Clearly not an inherited trait."

"H-h-how?"

She snatches the weapon and studies it. Powder fired. Primitive. Beastly.

As such, easily disabled. It opens on the underside. Shells go into a row, twelve long and when struck with a pin they ignite. Turn three screws here and remove this pin and nothing happens. She does so faster than their eyes can track.

She aims towards the floor and pumps the weapon. Flinching against a blast that never came, he crawls backward. An unspent shell clatters to the floor.

"I..."

Pump. Clatter. He scrabbles farther back.

"Wish..."

"To..."

"Ask..."

"Your..."

"Blessing..."

"For..."

"Our..."

"Marriage."

This time, she pulls the trigger rather than pumping. Click.

"Ah. As I suspected."

She holds up the firing pin.

"This fell out. What I would _prefer_ is to share a meal with you, your wife and mine and in the warmth of full bellies we can then decide if we ever wish to interact again. But if you wished to insult the quality of Clar-"

"SARAH!"

"I am speaking, male. In my culture, any interruption is rude. Yours just now was grounds for a monetary fine."

"As I was saying, any further insult to the quality of Clarissa's character, I might put this back in. But if I do..."

She slides the pin back in and racks in a fresh shell.

"And especially if you threaten to harm her or myself ever again? Arithmetic becomes important. Specifically, subtraction."

In the background, the old western drones on the black and white television.

> _I know what you're thinking: "Did he fire six shots or only five?"_
> 
> _Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself._
> 
> _But being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question:_
> 
> _'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do you, punk?_

She raises the weapon.

"Ruth, correct?" she asks his wife without looking.

"Yes. Please don't hurt him."

Lyta works her jaw back and forth.

"That was never a possibility. I am a trained soldier. This weapon ceased being dangerous the moment I took it. However, his understanding of the situation needed to be reset."

She runs one hand father up the barrel and squeezes it, running her hand up and down. The shell explodes from sheer compression and she uses that heat to reshape the stock.

_Proper paint and finishing and it might make a lovely cane. Clarissa would look good in a tuxedo._

"Swords into ploughshares. Clarissa spoke highly of your tea, Ruth."

She offers her hand to this wretched man on the floor.

"It's safe, _zhutov."_ < "mine" >

Clarissa comes around the corner, still trembling.

"So, mom, dad, meet my fiancee."

"YOUR WHAT?" her father bellows.

"Well papa, if you'd let her get past 'visiting with Clarissa' before shooting...you would know that already."

Her mother shakes a fork at her. "Don't sass. Everyone sit down and shut up, including you big girl...and I'll make some tea."

"Yes mama," Clarissa replies with a smile.

=====

Ruth reaches for Clarissa's hands.

"I'm sorry. This is forbidden, Sarah."

Stiff-necked and sniffling, her _zhutov_ nods.

"I..." she exhales until her lungs are empty and Lyta feels a twang of pain. Pain is something nothing on this planet has caused her before.

"I knew that, I suppose. Felt like I should come tell you, then I heard about the cancer and I suppose I felt like I should say goodbye to dad."

She slides a just-purchased phone and a charger across the table.

"That's the phone number on there, yours and mine. I'll always have a phone that _that_ number reaches, the rest of my life. If I ever have kids," she nods towards Lyta. "They'll get one when they're old enough to have a phone. Same number reaches all of them. Maybe, someday, they might get a call from you. I'll send you letters sometimes, about my work and my family."

"You won't be coming to my funeral?" her father grouses.

"Why, papa? I'm dead to you. Just reminded me. Dead daughters can't attend funerals. Be well, mama. Take me home, Lyta."

I drop the bag on the table.

"Shekels. Fifty gold, fifty silver. I have paid her father and I will marry her and never leave her, as required by your religion. Would you have listened to seven words before shooting at my face, you might have learned about mine. Not so different."

Clarissa feels small when I wrap my arm around her. Deflated like an empty sac.

She says nothing else and we shut the shell-damaged door behind us. After staggering towards the stairwell she finally sinks, and her wail is the most wretched thing I have heard since the groan of a dying world burned itself into my nightmares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought about having more of her parents in this but I decided that I had too many characters and any arc salvaging someone who committed this sort of religious abuse was both difficult and counterproductive.
> 
> \--
> 
> The weapon is a Mossberg 590 shotgun and it holds 12 rounds. He fired one, she "fired" ten by tricking the weapon into thinking they were fired, so 12-10-1 = 1 shell left when Lyta laid out her terms. The Dirty Harry reference probably made that clear.
> 
> I also tried to have her doing good weapon safety, at least up to a point. Treating it as live even without the pin and not to be pointed at a person unless she was prepared to pull the trigger and kill them. It's a ground floor apartment, no one lives below them.
> 
> \-----  
> Going by the current price of gold, and our two-ounce coins from before, and the fact that it is fifty shekels paid to the father, that is $194,000 of gold, plus the $3000-ish of silver. She may have just paid for previously out-of-price cancer treatment...


	38. Behave! They're Sleeping Right Over There! (Part 10)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where all our ships meet the family and do things in family beds, and hammocks, and treehouses and so on that was less PG-13 than intended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This scene starts a sequence that is probably going to be our first full-on BDSM scene.

**Cat Grant | Midvale, Maryland | Fall 2015**

Cat has learned to tie herself up with a knot Kara showed her. She's not sure what this means but her life is certainly going weird new places since Kara.

She tugs a bit to make sure the fabric -- one of Kara's wrap-like toga panties -- is tight. It smells like Kara wore it and _fuck_ she is going to have a hard time waiting until given permission with that musk so near her head.

"Are you ready, honey?" Kara asks through the door.

"Please, Lioness..." Cat groans. "Devour me."

The door opens and it's Lena _and_ Kara _and_ Ronnie. Lena comes close first.

"Your Lioness wanted me to guide her, Kitty. Show her how to mark her little kitty so that if she gets lost, they take you back home."

Lena's green eyes are wandering and intense and probably filled with ancient witchcraft, going by the way the green fleck dance and glint with the dripping, butter-yellow light from the setting sun.

Kara is holding Ronnies leash of chromium and 24 karat gold.

"Color check, Kitty."

"Yellow," Cat gulps.

"Lena," Kara commands. "Stop."

It's _that_ tone, the one that makes the muscles in Cat's back shiver. 

"Mmm, _vaena_ , I do love our little clashes of the titans. Of course. She is your knight, your shadow wife. I want her to be comfortable. I want her to _pop_ when I put them on. I confess. I want to hold her with you. I've always admired Cat as an idea. Naked Cat, tied with silk ribbons? Naked Cat, our shared secret, our shadow wife, so safe and sleepy in her mistresses arms? That I crave."

Kara kneels down beside Cat.

"Right now, I'm Kara and you're Cat. Understand?"

Cat nods.

"You're the woman I admire and love. The woman who raised a brilliant little boy, alone in a business where everyone wanted to destroy you. A little boy you gifted me with. Let me call him 'son'. What do you need to know?"

Cat swallows.

"Will it hurt?"

Kara looks to Lena.

"Well?"

Lena shakes her head.

"Andi's did not. Though she did kick my shoulder, she came so hard."

"Ronnie's did but that was because..." she yanks on the middle of the chain still trailing from Kara's fist to Ronnie. "Apparently while I was gone last week someone had enhanced, enervated tissue implanted in her tongue, pussy and clit. Without permission. Parts of her beautiful body. A body which belongs to who?"

"My body is yours, Miss Luthor. My breasts, my pussy, my ass, my clit... My orgasms. All yours."

Lena smiles.

"That's correct Ronnie. Why is that?"

"I do not understand, mistr-Miss Luthor?"

"That is surrendering a lot. Kitty is a knight and she deserves an explanation. Why do you do it?"

"Because it makes it sweeter, Miss Luthor. Because when I come, it is a gift. You are loving me by allowing it. Because if I have been bad, you put the little red one in my pussy at breakfast and I can't take it out and if I'm good, you turn it up at lunch and give me permission and I black out I come so hard and if I'm bad, you don't give me permission, you turn it up and I find out at dinner if it is all right."

Lena arches an eyebrow. To say Cat isn't intrigued would be to make a liar out of the puddle on Kara's childhood bed.

"If it is all right? If I tell you you have been so good for me, pet?"

"You let me come and I lose my mind. You carry me to bed and turn it all the way down and in my dreams, I come over and over, on my knees below you, you behind me with the strap, your fingers twisting in my cu-my pussy-and when I wake up, still shaking with the small ones...you kiss my forehead and tell me to change the sheets and Andi bathes me."

Cat swallows. She's not sure she believes the psychology of it but she can hardly dismiss it out of hand. To spend all night in aftershocks, being cradled by someone that Ronnie clearly adores? Cat could see that kind of experience in Kara's arms cutting down on Lexapro bills.

"Do you enjoy that, Ronnie? Truly, or is it a game?"

"Answer my kitty, Ronnie," Kara says in a tone that belongs on a battlefield.

"It is _cleansing,_ Lioness. It is only punishment until I come. Then I am relieved. I am somewhere else and my mind is calmed. I know that I can do better. I am born again, in Miss Luthor's arms and each time, I am less likely to make mistakes."

"When," Cat bites her tongue lightly to get some saliva back in her mouth. "What was the last thing you were punished for?"

"I did not realize that the gang I was infiltrating traded in flesh and when I realized it I panicked. I was outgunned. Miss Luthor had to send the FBI and there was a fight and it killed the men and freed the women. I was not observant and innocent people died. One of the women died."

"It was a large mistake, Ronnie. The small ones?" Lena asks her. "Those are easier, yes?"

Ronnie nods.

"Those, I must remain under Miss Luthor or Miss Rojas's desk, throughout the day and pleasure them. If they are sharing the office, they share me. If someone in their circle, what they call the coven, comes in, I am offered."

A half-hearted smile and a distant look cross Ronnie's face.

"They work late those days. It is hard to always be good if I am punished that way."

"What was your last small mistake, Ronnie?"

She swallows.

"I...the last two were making lunch for Andi and Miss Luthor and eating it and failing to excuse myself from Miss Luthor's side at a meeting which I had not been invited to."

"Why did you list both, Ronnie?"

"Because one was an accident. The lunch one. I was so hungry after Andi and Miss Lena split me."

"Split you?" Cat asks.

Ronnie draws a fingertip down from her hairline.

"They took sides, Miss Kitty. The only places I could be touched was if I had two. Lena was right," she says, hefting her own breast.

She keeps tracing and her hand pauses, hesitantly, over her sex. It becomes clear to Cat. They divided every part of her symmetrically, earlobes to labia. Meaning it probably took a while because her clit was left alone.

"It took almost all night and I was so hungry that I forgot who the food was for."

Lena's eyebrow arches.

_God, it's like a knife it's so crisp._

"The meeting was deliberate?"

"Yes, Miss Luthor."

"Once we give Cat her armor, she will punish you for that. Learn how to behave now that she is above your station, as a Knight. Do you understand, Pawn?"

Ronnie nods.

Lena inspects Ronnie with those green, green eyes.

"Are you wet, Ronnie?"

Blushing, she nods.

"Kara, tighten the chain and pull five times. No more, no less. Ronnie, rub your thighs together three times for each pull. Then I will decide if you may come."

"This part is amazing," Kara whispers.

She pulls. Ronnie grinds, and grinds, and grinds.

"Again! Again, Kara!"

This time, Ronnie's lips part.

By the fourth pull, Lena is licking her lips.

"When she pulls the fifth time, she will come for us. Quietly."

Kara does and Ronnie pitches forward onto the carpet, biting her fist. Little twitches and gasps and shivers suggest she is not faking it.

"My god," Cat mumbles. "That was..."

"The talking, mostly. I gave her permission but after all these years," Lena chuckles. "My voice might as well be my tongue, for Ronnie. Certainly what put her over the edge."

Cat gulps.

"Can I know more before I say yes? About the technical details?"

Kara smiles. She reaches into a velvet bag and pulls out a choker necklace, little more than a ring.

"This is your collar, Kitty. You will wear it at all times. There are etchings in it that only Kryptonian eyes can see. It is gold now. However... _agqyte_."

Kara speaks the words and the metal slides against itself and now the ring is a series of irregular triangles hooked at and it lengthens so it would disappear beneath her neckline. Fall just above her breast. A small gemstone of deep blue sits in a hexagonal plate at the bottom.

"Different patterns. People in the Office will simply think you have five, nine once I can program it, favorite new necklaces. The fact that you never take it off will please me and if someone who is in the community ever sees it, they will know to never proposition you."

Kara kisses Cat's forehead.

"Because I will never share you, Cat. Everyone who will ever touch you is in this house."

"Your mother and my son are here, too."

Kara rolls her eyes.

"Brat. She has lost the privilege to be called Cat Grant. Very well, Kitty I can see you wish to groom your Lioness after her morning jog. Lena, Ronnie? Please remain here while Kitty cleans me."

Kara throws her legs over Cat's and shimmies up on the bed. She pushes her yoga pants down and Kara's usually petite, almost hidden lips are swollen and sloppy and opened up and her clit is red and swollen and so slick looks like small a glazed strawberry. She is glistening and not just that but her thighs and her navel and _fuck that is s a new one but she is sweaty_ and to Cat, the idea of Kara being nervous for her or keyed up after exercise is almost too much and _does this change how she tastes_ and Kara's gentle but unstoppable hand is on the back of her head.

"Green?"

"Green as Miss Lena's eyes," Cat jokes.

It does. It changes Kara's sharp tang, it takes away the purity and the sharp flavor that is like a shot of unflavored vodka it is so strong and clears all else. It dirties it. Adds coppery and salty shades.

Kara reaches above her and retrieves a tin of Altoids.

"Tongue."

She counts five onto Cat's tongue.

"Make me minty fresh, kitty. Get your tongue in me _deep so that all_ Lena and Ronnie taste is peppermint. Do you understand?"

Cat nods. She crunches the Altoids and gets to work.

"She good?" Lena asks.

"Mmm...she hadn't before us so I made her practice. She's eager but she listens. We're working on edging, not just racing me to the finish. She's better every time."

Lena walks over and stands beside the bed. With a snap of the fingers and a pointing towards her slacks, a still-dazed Ronnie accompanies her, throws a pillow under her knees and drags the zipper with her tongue.

Then Kara holds out a _fucking iPad_ and starts going through her and Lena's emails. They share an inbox, they told her. A gesture of trust before the formal wedding.

"This one?" Lena asks.

"Honest inquiry. Follow up after the interview about Kal."

"This?" Kara asks.

"I'll deal with him. Try your patented brainwashing via sex thing. Need to borrow Stacy."

Kara chuckles.

"You just need to smile at Stacy, you know that. You're so pale I think she can fantasize she's eating herself."

Cat slows and Kara grunts and grinds on her tongue and closes her thighs just a bit around her head. Sounds are muffled now.

"This is punishment, Kitty. Lena and I will do some business and I know you're there and you are trying and I am proud of you. But you will have my full attention only when I can no longer focus on Lena's words."

It's a goddamned trap. She can't get Kara close without focusing on her clit and she loves how Kara's walls shiver and grip her tongue but Kara lets her because _Cat_ loves that. If she wants _attention_ she needs to get her off and can't follow orders about the mints and that hurts.

Nonetheless, she built an empire. She can get her mistress off.

Cat leans forward, covering her teeth with her tongue and getting another bit of length into Kara. When her lip brushes Kara's quivering clit there's an 'oh' sound from somewhere far away, somewhere not pinned between Kara's pale thighs.

She can't be far. Her fingers now where her lover's G-spot hides, she just needs to reach it. She flicks and presses up with her tongue and Kara's walls tighten and she can barely move her tongue. She hears glass crack.

"Well," Lena chortles. "Good thing we can afford to repair the screen. Exceeded herself, did she?"

"She's...oh, Lena...mmm...G-spot. The edge. Just flicking but its still... _oh Rao!_ Cat, my love. Mother of m- _ohfuck!_ "

Kara's hands fall to the sides of Cat's head and her fingertips are twitching. The whole universe above Cat is sports bra and Kara's nipples stiffening into the lycra and a landscape of pale chiseled abs. The atmosphere is the musk of Kara's juices and the smell of her sweat.

"I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable with the email. Just that, keep going. Exactly that. Slowly. We're making love now, Kitty. Not punishing you."

Managing to find the thick ponytail, Cat yanks.

"Naughty," Kara hisses.

"Oh _vaena_ , I simply need to do something with this neck," Lena rasps. "How I wish I could mark you."

"Someday," Kara gulps. "after the transfusions you can."

Cat can see Kara keeping Lena's hair back and Lena's leaning in now and Cat wouldn't be a bit surprised to see fangs emerge before she starts sucking on Karas's pulse point.

Ronnie is still plunging her _intriguing_ and not-quite-normal tongue into Lena and Lena drops her free hand so Cat can take it. Kara offers her left for Cat.

Her Lioness and her Mistress hold her hands and tell her she is good and pleasing and she works her tongue and her teeth and her jaw against Kara and yes this is _what she needs_ and if they _don't mark her_ someone might get the _wrong idea about who she belongs to_ and that scares her and Kara thinking she would stray would break her heart.

Kara comes. Lena comes. Cat and Ronnie moan and wait their turns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well! And Cat got bratty so she didn't even get to ask about the "piercings" she is supposed to get.


	39. Behave! They're Sleeping Right Over There! (Part 11)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where all our ships meet the family and do things in family beds, and hammocks, and treehouses and so on that was less PG-13 than intended.

**Cat Grant | Midvale, Maryland | Fall 2015**

Women like Cat don't get tattoos. Professional suicide, not to mention what could possibly be so much more magnificent than she as to get it burned into her flesh?

"Tell me again, Lio-"

Cat sighs.

"Kara."

Kara turns Cat's head towards her and kisses her, hamming it up with a _mwah!_ sound and leaving her lips on her forehead for a long time.

"When you're nervous, like this, it's Cat and Kara. My professional icon, my naughty little secret, my shadow wife."

If the word 'wife' ever sounded like a good thing it was just now. Forth spouse is a charm, perhaps.

"What's that?"

"Two kinds of spouses existed on Krypton, for high house members. Prime wives, or husbands, were the ones whos social events were broadcast on galaxywide networks. The ones whose marriages fused fortunes and holdings and united scrabbling species into one economic bloc. Formed empires, sometimes. If there were two high house members and they each were married only once, it was a prime marriage,e by default. Like my mother and father."

"Shadow wives were...just lovers?"

Another long, lingering kiss and Kara continues her explanation more into Cat's hair than anything.

"So much more. Sometimes it was two partners who spent almost every waking moment with each other but were businesswomen, life partners, co-researchers, but not sexual. To continue the House, the wife or husband who was reproductive had to be prime."

"Example. My mother was, quite frankly, more sexual than my father. By far. One day she came into my training room where the dance instructor who was the leader of a mid-sized allied house was teaching me some formal courtship dance. Forget which but it was kind of like tango. Intense. What I remember is her saying 'go read, little one' and practically ripping Nola Em-Vex out of my arms. It took me a few days to figure it out, but when three other judges complained that her sentences were too lenient, I started to wonder. When Nola came out of mother's private chambers, smiling and wrapped me up in a hug, it began to click. She called me 'little one' that morning. She never had but my mother always had. This was five Earth years before the end. The Talk? That was Nola. When I met some smoking Sagittarian triplets, and my father was wondering here I went she stood him down and said..."

_"You might be an El but she is in love, Zor and I am a Vex. When we hide something, it stays hidden. And I will not have you disturb your daughter when she tastes passion for the first time."_

Cat giggles.

"Oh my god."

"She had the deepest, smoothest voice. Tingly feelings. According to the archives, Nola's paperwork for shadow marriage was on my father's desk. Probably signed with a note saying how proud he was of Alura and buried under sixteen cups of _uvaja_ tea he never quite finished."

"Still sounds like a lover, Kara, not a wife."

"Let me finish," Kara laughs into Cat's hair.

"There was a party scheduled a few weeks after the planet died. Alura's plus one? For a party making a new administration of the government? For a party that would be broadcast to nineteen thousand worlds and space stations? For a party that the First Fleet's dreadnoughts would perform trick maneuvers over? Whole asteroids would be melted down for fireworks?"

"My invitation read: Alura of El, presenting Nola of El-Vex and Nola El-Vex claiming her daughter, Kara Zor-El. Sound like a big enough deal to you?"

Cat chuckles.

"I'll allow it. Almost like when Robe Lowe took me to the Oscars."

"Prime wives have to compliment the House's image or alter it in a desirable way. If we are blessed, the prime wife is someone we love and wish to share their bed. Shadow wives can be anyone who we cannot live without. Their only shared characteristic is that they are needed."

Cat chews on her lip for a minute while she chews on the response.

"Lena. That makes peace with the Luthors, but I don't."

"No. Because to Kryptonians, no such feud exists. Lex and Lillian stand so far apart from Lena that they would assume them unrelated but for the same-spelling name."

"Houses all had their projects, and in public, we presented unity on those. Disagreements and adjustments were private. Back in the House's citadel. Over dinner or tea."

"Lex and Lillian's is so far past Lena's, so foul that I will probably be explaining to people that yes, they were family for as long as we are together. The idea that they could be so far opposed would be confounding to Kryptonian aristocracy. The idea that Lena has suffered assassination attempts from both will likely mean offers to duel, or if a Vex ever pops up, for a quiet assassination. My people will see a charitable mission of Lena Luthor and two traitors who sought to ruin it. They will greet her as Matriarch Luthor and express their regret that her relatives have sought to undermine her House and its works."

"Lena is a scientist and an engineer from a family of fighter and pioneers, with a reputation for cleverly concealed masterpieces of deception. House Zod were fighters and pioneers, builders. The architects who never shied from doing the unsexy, difficult, or dangerous thing for Krypton. In our old histories, a contingent marched on a jungle, killed these dragon-like animals called galata which had escaped and become feral chopped down trees and the survivors began making houses."

"House Vex was notorious for their spycraft, their back dealings and for the fact that Senators only realized they'd been played when after their vote, the Vex representative would smirk. Often, they worked as couples. Enemy races would find their government toppling around them, too many pieces in motion to possibly stop and a dozen different coups were colliding. The Vex or Vexes responsible would be quietly granted a medal and a candlelit dinner at state expense upon reaching Krypton."

"We've usually married into Zod or Vex. Probably because Els are raised to be egotists. Flashy. Heads in the clouds. Crusaders giving speeches on the battlefield. Scientists trying to stay one step ahead of physics before it punishes us for our boldness. Dreaming of ways to master the universe. Those houses are raised in complementary traditions. Lena is a blend of both. Earth only sees one-on-one marriage as legitimate."

Cat lets herself relax, sag really, into the mattress.

"If...would you take me, if not for Lena?" she asks.

"Cat! I would take you _both_ as my primes, were it not for your wishes about Carter."

"Oh."

"Yeah," Kara scoffs. "Oh."

Cat reaches out for Kara's hand. 

"Can you tell me about the ahh...piercings?"

Kara pulls out her tablet, which was definitely not made by Apple.

"Filament implants. So the clitoral one works like this: I, or Ronnie, or Andi or Lena or whoever will get you _fully_ hard. Several orgasms in. Throbbing. This device will scan it. Map it down to the cell. The whole thing, the visible part and the rest."

She holds out a small rod with what really looks like a satellite dish at the end. 

"When you come down, we put anesthetic on and implant it. Microscopic threads, coiling around the nerves and putting a mesh inside the blood cells. The power core is in your collar."

"What does it actually do?"

"Well, it will form a small sphere of _aqyte_ jewel, above the hood. That's the 'piercing' part. The inner part will mean that if you're naughty, I can tell. It will detect the orgasm and email me. So if you think you're going to rub out under your desk and get away with it, I'll charge you interest when I get home."

"Ronnie?"

"Err," she grunts.

"Ronnie, I know that Lena upgrading your marks made you feel very good but stand up. Come where Cat can see you."

"It will also mean that I can touch my marriage bracelet, like so..."

Kara drags her index finger in a z-shaped loop. Ronnie gasps, softly and before Cat's eyes, her lips swell and her clit peeks out. Fatter and rounder than anything Cat's ever seen in a mirror or in a lonely evening on the internet.

"Miss Kara," Ronnie croaks. "Please."

"In a moment."

Kara touches some other controls, and a silvery metal cap forms over Ronnie's clit. She reaches out and pinches it, and Ronnie whines.

"Did it hurt?"

"Noooo," Ronnie groans. "I wanted to feel it and I couldn't."

"Are you ready, Ronnie?"

Kara taps the bracelet three times and the metal vanishes. Static electricity crawls over the red, angry skin and Ronnie crumples like she'd been hit by a truck, falling over Cat and Kara.

"Shh...shh...shh," Kara whispers, rubbing Ronnie's back.

"That was eight out of ten and maxed on speed. Scale's different for each of my ladies. Ronnie's into hard. As a sub or a pawn, we offered Ronnie a yes-or-no on the implant. You would be able to set up some guardrails, customizations and so on. You have delegated access to Siobhan's and Ronnie's implants. You would be able to block yours out if you needed, even turn the cap on or start the anesthetic pulse routine during sex if it was too much. Backup safeword. But the notifications are not negotiable. I want to know every time my kitty purrs..."

"The others?"

"The nipples? Same gear, less complex. Stimulation directly to the nerves, mesh dilation of the erectile tissue, altering temperature, capping. And as we find more hotspots, we can put more in. I think the back fo your neck is special for you. If they are in visible places, you and I will work out a design you like so that the capping looks like jewelry, and we'll leave it on by default."

"So a clicker to count, remote control from me, orgasms I can schedule with a hexadecimal tag on an appointment in your _email calendar,_ " Kara teases, taking Cat's ear in her teeth. "Communication system so if you want one and we're apart because of your work or my Supergirl duties? Ping me. I can start one. Protective cap until you learn to hold back on your own. I don't want to be taking honest mistakes out on you. Sound good, kitty?"

"I did just see you brain a woman with an orgasm, so yes."

"Ronnie?"

Nothing but gulping breaths and drool soaking Cat's lap.

"Yeah. Let's go get Stacy. Ronnie's going to need a minute. You have _got_ to try Ronnie's tongue, Cat. Some illegal stem cell bullshit she had done in Morrocco. Heavily enervated, longer than average, five times normal muscle density. Strong as her fingers and almost as many nerves as her clit. You can bear down when her tongue is in you and hold it, and she'll come. Stacy keeps asking for one..."

Kara goes back into the bag and takes out a bracelet of some strange, dark gray metal shot with blue discoloration. She can see kryptohavli writing and glowing circuitry on the inside.

"Nth Metal. Indestructible. With this bracelet..."

Kara slides it over Cat's left hand.

"I thee wed."


	40. Behave! They're Sleeping Right Over There! (Part 12)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where all our ships meet the family and do things in family beds, and hammocks, and treehouses and so on that was less PG-13 than intended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In Action Comics #14 (Jan 2013) Neil Degrasse Tyson assisted Superman in locating Krypton.
> 
> It is 27 light-years away in the Corvus constellation, orbiting Red Dwarf LHS 2520.
> 
> Dr. Tyson actually assisted with this comic and picked an appropriate red giant star and picked something from Corvus because the Smallville high school mascot is a crow (a corvid bird)

**KryptonMemorialInstitute.info | Posting by Matriarch Kara Zor-El | Fall 2015**

(video message)

> In a room of black stone, wearing a robe of blue and silver with the Marayah glyph on it, Supergirl kneels before a podium with three candles on it.
> 
> **"Citizens of Earth. My neighbors, my friends. People who like me, people who don't. My greetings. In the light of Rao's guidance may you live and prosper.**
> 
> **Twenty-seven and a half years ago, tonight, my home planet of Krypton exploded. It was a grim day for us. We were sixty billion people and then we were two. Later we discovered a few more survivors, wrongly imprisoned in what you know as Fort Rozz. Among them, no romantic couples capable of childbearing. My cousin and I were the only male and female of compatible genetics.**
> 
> **However mighty your star makes us, we were a dead race.**
> 
> **Machines we created long ago to ease my sisters' difficult pregnancies were once widely available to incubate children for same-sex couples, single parents, or women unwilling to risk pregnancy. These are called Genesis Chambers. The Metropolis attacks were committed by a rogue military officer of my people, Dru-Zod of House Zod. What is less known is the reason behind them. Zod sought to repopulate our species. In the crashed ship in Metropolis, there was a Genesis Chamber.**
> 
> **Was. The crash destroyed it.**
> 
> **The man you know as Superman, my cousin, arrived here twenty-seven and a half earth years ago. Tomorrow, it will have been to the day. A little over seven years ago, I arrived. Upon my arrival, I discovered another ship. Functional. I have concealed it and it's precious Genesis Chamber from those who would destroy my race.**
> 
> **This summer, we were able to activate the chamber and we seeded our first healthy pregnancies. A tiny fraction of full capacity but a necessary test. We lost six of our little ones before we realized the weakness in the nutrient baths.**
> 
> **Four dozen children survived. All Kryptonians like me. They will be adopted half by human couples and half by alien couples.**
> 
> **Tomorrow, at dawn, with their parents watching and our newly chosen high priestess to bless them, they will be born. Those given to alien couples will be delivered to their parents in secret, on the ship. Those given to humans will be delivered to the United Nations where they will be welcomed by the leaders of your nations, your peoples, as they take their first breaths on your world.**
> 
> **My race lives again and I have no words to describe how joyous that is. We have plans for cities of our own. Risen Krypton will be self-sufficient. Well defended but not armed. Located far away from yours and in uncomfortable lands you cannot use. You are many and a small number of you are fearful, even hateful. We are strong but we are few. Whatever your politicians tell you about the threat we pose, it is a lie. Seven and a half billion are a threat to fewer than fifty, not the other way around.**
> 
> **I pray, I pray and I pray that we can one day live together as easily as we breathe air. Until then, until I know that to place a Kryptonian babe in a human neighbor's arms is safe for the child and neighbor alike, we will keep our nest secret from you.**
> 
> **Tomorrow at dawn, welcome those babies. Your neighbor may come home from the hospital. Your spouse may look at you in awe at the tiny body held between you as you sleep. Your friend at the office may come in, the one who never found the right partner and he or she may have a child on their hip.**
> 
> **Tomorrow at three forty-three in the morning local time and in the center of the constellation Corvus, visible to the naked eye you may witness the last of Rao's light. The supernova will be brilliant and crimson and it will last for over an hour. The night after, the glow will be dimmer. By the next full moon, it will be gone.**
> 
> **I invite you to observe both. Observe new life and observe death.**
> 
> **The day after tomorrow, when the ghosts are gone but the innocent babies remain, the actions of a few will speak volumes. We will know a great deal more about each other in two days' time.**
> 
> **May your chosen divine give you blessings and good life.**
> 
> **_El Mayarah,_ my friends and neighbors. **
> 
> **Matriarch Kara Zor-El, eldest daughter of House El"**
> 
> Kara sets down the paper and reaches for the camera.

* * *

**Lena Luthor | Midvale, Maryland, | Fall 2015**

Kara turns off the camera and then the image inducers. Her childhood bedroom reappears.

"That was very brave, love."

Kara blinks her eyes shut and holds them, as if she could simply cork the tears.

"This is wrong," she murmurs. "Those children won't be sa-"

"Stop. Those children will be in loving homes, raised by fit parents who knew the risks. Your allies in that agency that doesn't exist will monitor their homes and their schools for threats. The childless in Astra's group will do the same. They will live to grow up, Kara."

Lena gets up of the bed and kneels too, taking Kara's hands in hers.

"I've known you a short time, Kara Zor-El. I've yet to learn something I didn't like, or couldn't forgive about you. Given the things you've confessed, I doubt you could have any secrets so awful as to disgust me."

"Marry me," Kara gulps. "Formally. Tomorrow night. Before the supernova. We will say our vows in Rao's Light, like I always thought I would as a girl."

Her hand hovers over the laptop's trackpad, flirting with the enter button that will submit the video. Lena's hand joins it.

"Take my hand, Kara. Together. _El Mayarah_..."

Together, they announce Risen Krypton.

* * *

**Lillian Luthor | Jackson Hole, Wyoming | Fall 2015**

(gated community)

Three flying, armored figures are hovering outside the cabin's front door. 

Not approaching.

Not retreating.

Speaking to her neighbors when they approach. 

Offering fruit and bread and what looks like cake. 

Shaming her for her reclusiveness.

Taking one of Lex's kryptonite cannons in one hand and a repeller core her little spy stole from Lena, she steps outside.

"I take no pleasure in killing you, aliens!" she calls out. "But I will!"

The one in the center, a female, descends to the ground. Her armor wears a house crest, one not in Lex's notes. One wears a Courage glyph and is no doubt a Rankless. One the House Zod crest.

_The Zods survived?_

"Kinswoman."

"I AM NO SUCH THING!" Lillian roars.

"But you are," the woman replies with a smile.

"I am Astra In-Ze, aunt of Kara Zor-El and Kal-El. Your daughter, Lena, will be wed tomorrow night under the last flicker of Rao's light from the supernova. As will I and my wife, and this one and hers. You are commanded by our sacred tradition and our common law to attend the unions of House El and Luthor, House In-Ze and Indigo, and House Zod and Rosen. Food and drink will be provided. Bring the guests you wish. None present will be armed."

Lillian raises the canon and fires. The woman leans into the beam and does not flinch. Only a tightness to her jaw shows the pain. The other black-haired one shimmers forward.

The woman with the Zod crest raises the weapon and wraps her hand around the still-firing emitter. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she crushes it.

"The invitation stands, Lillian Luthor."

A few of her neighbors have gathered. Two couples, both of them professors, sidle close to the General.

"Your presence would be welcome, yes. I believe one of the brides may even pepper you with questions about Tenneson. We will arrange transport from here, tomorrow at mid-day. Perhaps your less well-mannered neighbor will attend to give away her daughter."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I...I just have something in my eye, OK?
> 
> Fun fact: It's going to take some work but the 100,000th word of this is going to involve Lillian losing her shit about Lena getting married. Takes a bit of precision.


	41. You Can Hang Out in the Study...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Lillian Luthor didn't raise no fool, but her abuse forged a merciless woman with a taste for ironic revenge and where Earth and Kryptonian concepts of propriety will soon collide.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a Lena Luthor who knows she's a slave-freeing, prison disintegrating badass and a Lillian Luthor who didn't know that just yet.

**Lillian Luthor | Jackson Hole, Wyoming | Fall 2015**

The house is quiet. Xerxes is snoring on the other pillow, all two hundred pounds of fur and fluff. She'd discipline the beast for getting up on the bed...if he were not so much more charming than other inhabitants of her bed over the years.

Glancing over at the alarm clock, she sees it's early. Never too early to get a head start on the competition though.

She puts her reading glasses on. Wouldn't do to be stumbling downstairs half-blind.

Something thumps downstairs and Xerxes sits upright, fast. He leaps for the bedroom door so fast he smacks his nose into it.

"Oh, for heavens sake..."

Lillian cracks the door and the beast is gone, seemingly falling down the last few steps in his excitement.

Then there's barking. That will not do. She will not have backsliding on the barking.

"Hey boy!" a female voice calls out. "I haven't seen you in ages, huh? Junior year, that's right! Yeah. Good boy!"

_Lena. Lena is in my house._

Outside the window a series of white flashes pierce the purpling predawn sky.

"Oh, fuck."

Lex left weapons at each of the family properties, for human and alien intruders both. If she has to put her perverted, too-trusting race traitor of a daughter down herself, she will.

She has a kryptonite pistol and an antiproton projector. Have to do. When she gets to the bottom of the stairs, one of her lawyers is waiting. She holds out a document for her.

"It seems young Miss Luthor has bought this property. All properties except the Metropolis estate, the Smallville estate and your mother's manor in Westchester."

"What do I pay you for?" Lillian snarls.

She snatches the paper. Olivia Marsdin and her daughter stole her home from her under the guise of 'national security concerns relevant to non-human persons in the United States' and 'cultural initiatives to celebrate diversity' which is nothing but code for 'rule by alienfucker' as far as she's concerned.

"Fuck. How?"

"She used a combination of eminent domain in state court, federal court and a national security letter, ma'am. It was unstoppable and until we were served, undetectable. You were compensated at three times value, if that's any consolation."

"Go. I'll decide if I'm retaining your firm later today."

The sheer scale of the fuckup is clear once she reaches the bottom of the stairs. Her daughter is slumped back on the couch with Xerxes' head in her lap, idling scratching him. The scarcely pubescent Kryptonian whore who calls herself Supergirl is beside her has the rest of the beast on her lap. The In-Ze officer from yesterday is on one of the armchairs with some metallic slut with no apparent clothing and crimson hair made of some kind of glass draped in her lap. The other Kryptonian is kneeling on the floor, across from her fiance who is praying in Hebrew.

_Great. Aliens, sluts and Jews._

"Love it, Lee."

"Yeah, Kara. It's nice. Not going to keep most of them. Maybe this one. It feels real. It's like, an ordinary person could work hard and live here. Plus I like to swim in the lake."

"Skinny or regular dipping?"

Lena lazily turns her head to that blonde vermin beside her.

"Hmm. Depends if you do the dishes."

"This and for sure keeping the Dublin one."

"HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU IN MY HOUSE!" Lillian bellows.

Xerxes startles and then settles back in. Traitorous cur.

Lillian raises the weapon. Her daughter dies first. It buzzes. 

She looks down.

_Biometrics changed? How in the fuck did she do that?_

"Pays to have a Coluan friend," Lena jokes. "...and a brother who is not nearly so clever with his nostalgic ciphers as he thinks. So, all of Lex's central codes are mine now. I initiated the self-destruct sequences at all his bunkers over breakfast. Tea?"

She gestures to the pot on the coffee table.

"Why are you vermin all here?"

Lena rubs Xerxes' ears. Beast always liked her too much.

"It would seem that in my house I could host a backyard wedding. Friends and family. So much less light pollution here than National City or Metropolis, mother."

"But if you don't want to attend, you're welcome to relax in the study or your bedroom as we won't be using those. Kara and I will help you move out later," Lena jokes, squeezing the shirtsleeve wrapped bicep. "Obvious innuendo aside, she's got a way with _boxes_."

Lena's not wearing lipstick. Sloppy. Unkempt. She smirks all the same.

"We think we'll do the honeymoon here. Remote. Distant enough we won't wake the neighbors. Great kitchen. Quick commute to the west coast if my wife needs to run an errand, don't you think?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's cold, Lena. That's just cold. One guess as to where the honeymoon will be and whether any of the three couples using the house will ever put their pants on just because of Lillian's presence. So many...surfaces to try.  
> Counters.  
> Against the refrigerator.  
> Against the bay windows.  
> Against the door. Every door. In the house.


	42. The Wide World of AlephThirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter will have links to social media related to my works, my supporting websites and so on. There will be a chapter on each story for this so you can enjoy these no matter what your jam is.

Tumblr (the hub of the whole operation)

<https://alephthirteen-writes.tumblr.com/>

Discord (I'm on most of the day, mute it at night)

<https://discord.gg/j4QrQF4>  
  
Kryptowiki (codex with expanded info, sections per story)

[kryptowiki.stufftoread.com](https://kryptowiki.stufftoread.com)

It's up, with some minimal information but definitely needs to grow...thankfully, it's a wiki!


	43. Something Green, Something Blue, Something Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where there are three weddings and a T-Shirt.

**Lillian Luthor | Jackson Hole, Wyoming | Fall 2015**

A middle-aged woman with an academic look about her sits beside her on the back porch. The day has passed in something much like shell-shock. She wasn't this powerless when the FBI had a tactical team with their rifles on her. She wasn't this defeated when Superman triumphed and defeated her baby boy in seventy-eight awful seconds.

She was powerless when a dozen high house members and a flock -- no, a murder like with crows -- of random Kryptonians settled in on her back lawn. Intellectually, she knew her chances were nil with Lena against her and Lex's toys broken.

She felt gutted when they started barbecuing and laughing and putting carefully measured droplets of some jellylike thing into _her liquor_ as they shared it. Despite all of them being military or civilians heavily trained in whatever fucked up form of knighthood was practiced there, they barely spared her a fucking glance.

Because she was the worst sort of defeated. The enemy who was no longer worth worrying about.

"Evening. I'm Eliza Danvers. Those two are mine," she says, indicating Supergirl and some red-headed butch dyke who arrived with a dozen plainclothes operatives. Soldiers. Hardly fooling anybody.

"You do know who I am, right?"

Eliza shrugs.

"You do realize your lapdog threw sixteen megatons at my house and all it got him was a one-way ticket to Leavenworth, right?"

"Because your golden girl was there."

"No. Because my golden girl _cares._ Because, Lillian, hate works but only for a while. Not forever. People like you never win because you ask for the unthinkable. Your win looks like Hell to everyone else so they turn on you, a few at a time."

"I was raised Jewish, I should know. You can get a hundred, or a thousand, or a million people to line up behind some monster like you, Lillian. When word of your butchery gets out? Fifty million people who had been living comfortable lives before that will risk theirs to grind you out."

"This year, there will be some bloodshed. Someone will attack some aliens. Perhaps some aliens will attack back. Five years from now? Someone's best friend in kindergarten will be Kryptonian. Fifteen years from now? The first prom night where the dates slow-dance hovering off the floor and he or she is trying really hard to not use X-ray vision for _that_ because it'd be pervy."

"Aliens came and they're more powerful one on one and...the world didn't end. For you to win, for people to really follow you? It would have had to have ended."

Eliza offers one of the craft beers.

"S'not poisoned," she chuckles when Lilian just glares.

"Do have one question. Mom to mom?"

"What's that?"

"Why'd you treat Lena so terribly? When you could have loved her? Were you abused as a child?"

Lillian shakes her head.

"I was raised comfortably but also properly. Taught that the world isn't easy. Lena wasn't ready. Coddled by that slut who fucked my husband. I was trying to make her ready. Not ready enough, apparently."

"So you thought abusing her was going to _help_ her?"

Something fast and green and _hard_ makes it all go away.

=====

Lillian manages to blink enough to get her vision back. The woman from before, Lena, and the two Danvers sisters are arguing at the other end of the porch. Eliza is swigging her lemonade.

"-as pretty badass, mom. Wait... OH MY GOD! Is that the same bottle? Gross. Jameson, grab my mother a less...vampirey bottle, please."

"-ot honorable under Raoism to beat up the hosts!"

"-echnically, _gra mo chroi,_ it's my house so I'm the host. I believe we can forgive Eliza."

"-aybe I just don't want my mom in jail for killing some antisemitic, homophobic, racist fossilized hag with a _hard lemonade_!"

The younger soldier from yesterday offers her hand. The one from Zod.

"What have we learned, Lillian?"

"That Eliza Danvers is a violent asshole?"

"Actually, her daughters both _fainted_ so I think that was her first time."

There's a trickle of blood running down her temple. At least three different trickles, actually. From three different bruises.

_She's a natural then._

* * *

**Kara Danvers | Jackson Hole, Wyoming | Fall 2015**

As it turned out, both Andrea and Ronnie have _pipes_ and toss in Harry on piano and Stacy melted _on top_ the piano playing guitar and presto! Wedding band.

So as their lovers sing and Lena walks out in a spur-of-the-moment pale blue dress from a church sale down the way, it's perfect.

Andrea and Ronnie back off and Lena takes over, walking slowly towards Kara. Her accent is strongest when she sings. 

Kara's brain doesn't start back up until a verse or two of the Indigo Girls has slithered by. Xerxes falls in behind Lena, a jewelry case hanging from his collar. She rubs his ears and he barks sort of a _boof!_ noise that sounds more like a laugh.

> _"Oh you set up your place in my thoughts_   
>  _Moved in and made my thinking crowded_   
>  _Now we're out in the back with the barking dogs_   
>  _My heart the red sun_   
>  _Your heart the moon clouded_   
>  _I could go crazy on a night like tonight_   
>  _When summer's beginning to give up her fight_   
>  _And every thought's a possibility_   
>  _And the voices are heard but nothing is seen_   
>  _Why do you spend this time with me_   
>  _Maybe an equal mystery_

The wind picks up and the clouds amble along the night sky. It's late in the fall for a harvest moon, dark and nearly to blood red. It's a gift. A red light to hang in the sky and their memories when Rao no longer can. Lena ups her efforts so the wind doesn't take away from her performance as she walks towards Kara.

> _So what is love then is it dictated or chosen_   
>  _(Handed down and made by hand)_   
>  _Does it sing like the hymns of 1000 years_   
>  _Or is it just pop emotion_   
>  _(Handed down and made by hand)_   
>  _And if it ever was there and it left_   
>  _Does it mean it was never true_   
>  _And to exist it must elude_   
>  _Is that why I think these things of you_   
>  _I could go crazy on a night like tonight_   
>  _When summer's beginning to give up her fight_   
>  _And every thought's a possibility_   
>  _And the voices are heard but nothing is seen_   
>  _Why do you spend this time with me_   
>  _May be an equal mystery_
> 
> _But you like the taste of danger_   
>  _It shines like sugar on your lips_   
>  _And you like to stand in the line of fire_   
>  _Just to show you can shoot straight from you hip_   
>  _There must be a 1000 things you would die for_   
>  _I can hardly think of two_   
>  _But not everything is better spoken aloud_   
>  _Not when I'm talking to you_
> 
> _Oh the pirate gets the ship and the girl tonight_   
>  _Breaks a bottle to christen her_   
>  _Basking in the exploits of her thief_   
>  _She's a very good listener_

Lena's feet find Kara and their fingers tangle and when Kara starts to open her mouth, Lena puts a finger to her lips and keeps singing.

> _Maybe that's all that we need_   
>  _Is to meet in the middle of impossibility_   
>  _We're standing at opposite poles_   
>  _Equal partners in a mystery_   
>  _(Handed down and made by hand)_
> 
> _We're standing at opposite poles_   
>  _Equal partners in a mystery"_

"Equal partners?" she asks Kara.

"Always."

Lena kneels down and opens the jewelry case. There, nestled in a bed of dried thistle, are their marriage bands. Lena must have removed Kara's while she slept. The new high priestess comes up from the lakes edge, her robes wet at the hem and her voice lifted in lilting Ajaktanni prayer.

"Do you, Astra In-Ze wish to refuse this woman of your line to be wed?"

"I do not."

"Do you, Eliza Naomi Danvers, wish to refuse this woman of your line to be wed?"

"I do not."

"Do you, Lena Kieran Luthor of Earth, choose this wife of your own free will?"

"Do you, Kara Zor-El choose this wife of your own free will?"

"I do."

It's then. Exactly then and of _course_ Lena timed it. What had been a pinprick of white becomes a shifting, rose-red flower of light just below the moon. Brilliant enough that it _surprises_ Kara and pulls her attention and would have on any random night.

Lena raises her hands to cup Kara's cheeks and catch the tears.

"Under the light of Rao, I do claim her, anoint her as precious to me, and swear to forever cherish her. I do bring her into my house and give her the name Lena of El. Under the laws of the Ajkatanni faith, I declare her bloodline the foundation of a new house. Out of Helen Connelly, out of mothers uncounted which carried through Grainne Mhaol Ni Mhaille and the Matriarch Queen Maeve. From her womb will spring the House of Maeve."

Lena leans close.

"Really, Kara? A pirate queen and the most famous queen of Ireland? Did you lie to your priest?"

"Nanotechnology makes it so _easy_ to discretely research ancient graves," Kara replies. "I...would...never. Few things are more foul than for wife to deceive wife."

Kara slides the band onto Lena's wrist.

"You come from the best, Lena. Maeve, for example, really got around..."

* * *

**Susan Vasquez | Jackson Hole, Wyoming | Fall 2015**

The gate has been little oiled and little used. It practically shrieks when she opens in and Shal, Thal, and Lhal shrink back. The reflex of a jungle-bred species that was the hunted as often as it was the hunter. Every damn time it makes her want to retire and just wrap them up and never let them go.

"Sorry, darlings."

_You were unaware..._

_You are brave..._

_You are good to us..._

The telepathic sweet nothings always seem to come in threes, one each. Times when it's the girlfriends yelling at her in her head? Those are one on ones.

Alex looks over and smiles. 

Eliza is presiding over the wedding of Clarissa and Lyta, it seems. Rabbi's daughter will have to do if it is to be tonight. The way Eliza's head is bowed and the sheer _weight_ of feeling on her and Clarissa's faces makes Suze wish she'd had a reason to learn Hebrew.

Kara and Lena are swaying, skimming the grass by a few inches. Astra and Indigo are simply _being,_ too old and too tired to do more than sleep in a lawn chair in each others arms as metallic bracelets clack together on their enmeshed arms.

Susan whoops along with everybody else.

Her girls let out a single, massive shriek of glee and the un-initiated humans all jump.

Shifting her jacket back to cover her weapon, she puts the safety back on.

"Trouble?" Alex asks after leaning against the fence. "Wedding crashers?"

"Past tense. Unlucky for them, they weren't expecting my girls to be with me. In a hurry so I had to use thermite to hide the wounds. Need to drop a cover story on the police. Tomorrow."

She nods at Kara.

"Like she said, I'm a Danvers sister now. Had to make it to the wedding."

Alex groans.

"She actually did show me the shirts the other day," she realizes. "I hoped she'd forgotten..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of book one of "Bound in Light" and is, in effect, the end of our "Season 1 Arc". My hope is to do one book per season.
> 
> The next book will pick up in the honeymoon where all our horny gays do their level best to scar Lillian for life!


End file.
